From the 17th to the 23rd of December a special sequence of invocations have been used since at least the 5th Century. Today’s one – “O Wisdom, Come to teach us the way of prudence” – reflects the age-old quest for a balanced way of being, that will lead to our hearts being fulfilled, faced with all the demands on our time.
Every day we bump into things that challenge us to keep our hearts soft when fears and disappointments try to convince us to harden and close down. The temptation is to say “What can we do? It is as it is” . However, this never-ending wisdom practice consists in keeping open to experience in all its changing forms – its joys and its sorrows – having the courage to meet whatever comes our way with a spacious heart. We dare to believe in the underlying mystery, behind the busyness of the day. Things may change, the attitude of the heart doesn’t:
The water in the stream may have changed many times,
but the reflection of the moon and the stars remains the same.
Rumi
