the journey of the heart

The Journey

of the

Heart

by Charles O’Malley

A story about how we forgot who we are and where we come from...

...and about how we might remember

Advice to the reader

This story is a meditation – your enjoyment of it will be enhanced if you find a quiet place and read it slowly and

reflectively.

In Slideshare, use the page down button underneath the story, rather than the scroll

bar on the right.

This is a message…

…and a prayer

In the beginning…

…was the Heart

And the Heart was

LOVE

All

And the Heart was

One

And the Heart was

Then…

The One

became

Many

And the Many

set out together

on a journey

After a while…

…the Many

forgot…

…that each was

part of the One…

…and there was fighting

…and words like daggers

…and looks

that could kill

And the hearts of parents

stepping

started

on the hearts of children

And the hearts of teachers

the hearts of pupils

started

KICKING

And the hearts of men

on the hearts of women

started

STAMPING

And the hearts of managers

on the hearts of employees

JuMpInG

started

And soon…

…the children’s hearts

were trampling on the

parents’ hearts, the pupils’

on the teachers’, the

women’s on the men’s, and

the employees’ on the

managers’

And in each heart

there was...

But the pain

was largely

self-pity

And so

the pain (of self-pity)

pushed all the hearts

away

from each other

And there,

far apart,

they tended their wounds

And some

even died

While others turned

to stone…

And this went on and on…

…and on…

…and on

AND ON

But then…

a voice was heard…

…and the voice

said…

And the voice was heard

in EVERY heart

But none of the hearts

the voice had come

knew from where

Not knowing from where

the voice had come, some

chose to ignore the voice

and they continued…

…with fighting

…and words

…and looks

But some chose

to heed the voice

They stopped

And they listened

And this is what they heard…

[… silence …]

[…]

[…]

[…]

And in the silence

they encountered peace

and in the peace

they met LOVE

and because of the LOVE

…

other’s wounds…

…they saw each

…and felt

each other’s pain

And through the pain,

because of the LOVE,

within the peace,

engulfed by the silence…

…they were healed

And they turned their

backs on their ways of old

And so that time

became known as…

GREAT

TURNING

THE

And in that time of

The Great Turning

each heart looked

at all the other hearts

and this is what they saw…

And when they looked

a little harder…

And when they

really, really looked…

And in that moment

they remembered

that…

Many were

All

The

One

was

All

One

And the

was…

LOVE

And so together

they set out, in LOVE,

to nurse the broken hearts

land of forgetting

that still lived in the

so that they too might turn

…and so the journey

continues

Distributed under a Creative Commons license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Charles O’Malley

charlie@yellamo.com