After a speech I gave, a woman came up to me with her story. She said that for eight years—since her divorce—she had not been able to “get back on her feet.” She described her journey—graduate classes; certifications; real estate and now a new coaching program. She got teary-eyed as she said “none of these ideas were truly hers” but had been suggested by others. When I asked what she thought was “truly hers” her face changed as she described the visits and help she provided several elderly people on her street. She said: “This is crazy. I just love being like a good daughter to these elders.” I told her I had a friend who has a business model which essentially offers this kind of service to families. I told her to e-mail me if she was interested in an introduction to my friend. Will she follow up?

 I know sometimes I am actually given “an answer” to my current challenge but I keep moving forward without pausing. I can get so pre-occupied with the future that I do not see what is right before me. Asking, listening and following up are all part of the hairpin turn journey.

We gathered for two hours to explore and share our writing. Within minutes we were learning, laughing and giving expression to the stories within us. We developed, in a short period of time, a sense of belonging. Several people courageously shared what they had just written. One story was hilarious as she described a character in her hometown—and another sad as we heard about the drawn drapes and secrets in her childhood living room. Research suggests that a sense of belonging—of support—is extraordinarily important for our mental, physical and spiritual health. We need a supportive community to develop our full, creative capacity. We begin to relax and trust our truest selves in the context of such spontaneity and kindness. In order to make a hairpin turn in our lives—in order to move toward a fuller expression of living—we need a community where listening, laughing, and loving surrounds us.

I experienced one of those frustrating travel days. I was not certain I would get to my destination “in time” for the event. Finally I got the last flight to the city. Frazzled, I sat down in the back of the plane. I overheard a woman behind me tell her seatmate that she was attending the same event. As we got off the flight, I considered turning around and saying something to her. I felt too tired and tense to be sociable. Later, as we got our luggage, I thought about saying something to her again. I did not say anything. I just wanted to get to my room, take a hot bath, prepare for the morning and go to bed. Then I found out there was no shuttle to the convention center. The cab ride ended up costing me $61.00. As I pulled my suitcase to the elevator to finally go to my room, this same woman came up to me and said: “Weren’t you on my flight?” I tried to look surprised. “Oh-well, yes—I think so.” Then I said: “Wow! Expensive cab ride.” And she replied: “Oh—I wish I had known—a friend picked me up at the airport and so it cost me nothing.” Sometimes ignoring our inner prompting costs us. I vowed to pay attention to those promptings the next day. (I’ll blog on something really cool that happened as a result, in our next blog.)

A woman from the audience started her question with hesitation: “I hate to be negative when everyone seems so positive but here is my question.” She sighed and started to talk about a person at work she said was “toxic” and “impossible” and just a “scoundrel.” She felt betrayed by this person. She was not sure, but she felt like “the intelligence of the heart” (my topic for the evening) was in “dangerous territory” with this person. At the end of the evening many people surrounded her—perhaps sharing their own story of dealing with “scoundrels” in their lives. When we shift to our heart’s intelligence, we expand our capacity to connect with ourselves, and this allows us to more readily engage with others. We note what bothers us most in the “enemy” and then gently ask “where do I see that in myself?”. We can then relax into some kind of self-forgiveness and into the potential to lighten our shadowy burden. Connecting with our troublesome neighbor, begins with connecting with ourselves—with tender compassion. And this is the work of the heart which helps us make the hairpin turns in our lives.

I read the evaluations after the last class of the term with curiosity as I had changed some of the content and practices from the last time I taught the class. Several of the evaluations affirmed the changes and a few were ambivalent. Out of thirty feedbacks, one comment seemed odd. “Superficial” is all it said. I am not sure how to hold that comment. While clearly a minority opinion, that one word bothered me. How might that feedback “be of service” to the next iteration of this class? What does that mean for my teaching? My ego wanted to brood, my mind wanted clarity and my heart yearned for connection. Even in the context of all the other feedback, I take this one word as a lesson in humility. I trust I have explored the possible meanings, and now I let go. It’s another mystery to respect, and another opportunity to surrender.

Susan, who is a minister, told me about her visit with a dying man at hospice. He described to her what happened on the day of the fatal diagnosis. After the physician told him “to get his affairs in order as he had only weeks to live” he got into his car and then stumbled into a Wal-Mart on his way home. He was numb. At the checkout line, he blurted out his diagnosis to the cashier. She stopped the transaction, walked around the end of the counter and hugged him. This man told my minister friend that it was one of the most loving acts he ever received. A spontaneous, genuine “out of the ordinary” expression of care from one human being to another. This dying man took the hand of my minister friend and pleaded: “Please tell people to just love one another.” What unexpected act of kindness might present itself to us today—as an offer, or as a gift?

The mezzo-soprano and tenor began and the crowd became absolutely still. They sang the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac (Britten: Canticle II Op 51). The audience was captivated by the haunting beauty of this story: Love, obedience, betrayal, innocence, and then redemption and joy. We listened and our hearts were “broken in three”—to use the words from the middle of this piece. The audience sat in pure silence at the end and then spontaneously stood up together with appreciative applause. We were moved by the beauty of the music, haunted by the truth of this story and left helpless as our hearts were flung open.  This music helped us experience the fullness of life.