Maria has conjured up another streaming pillow, and she calls it “Open My Heart.” It is relevant to me, especially this week when I consider what I wish for 2012. In the last few weeks, life has been washing over me. A friend died. A friend is moving away. A friend had a baby. A dog died. I am getting some clear messages about my life, making some decisions about it. I have been doing intense spiritual work, with Mary Muncil and on my own and I am getting ever-closer to understanding what a spiritual life means and what work I need to do.

Opening my heart to new experience says it well for me. Understanding that fear and anger and judgement are choices, not the unalterable realities of life. We all feel these things, and I doubt that they ever completely go away. But they are not running my life any longer, I am, and that brings me inexpressible peace, joy and love.

When my friend died, someone we both knew came to me, and said “isn’t horrible? Can you believe it?” What I thought was, it was not horrible, it was natural. It was time. He loved a good and long and full life and was ready to go. It was where we all will go, in our time. Why is something so universal always seen through the prism of tragedy?

When my friend told me he was moving, he said he felt sad and guilty for leaving his friends behind, going to another part of the country. I will miss him, but I reminded myself to be happy for him, and share the joy of new experience. He was going to live his life, to seek new experience and that is sacred to me, and I did cry but not for sorrow, but out of gratitude that he is living his life. Godspeed. You don’t need to be sad, I said. You don’t need to be guilty. It’s a choice.

A different friend told me she wanted to move to the ocean, and I felt, at first, that she shouldn’t go. Moves can be impetuous, unrealistic. She ought to consider it, wait. Then I opened  my heart and let go of selfishness and instead, said a prayer for her dreams to come true, wherever they took her.

When someone e-mailed me a message about the awful tragedy of losing Rose, I opened my heart. What a good life she had, I thought, how grateful I was able to help her leave the world in peace and dignity. It is not, to me an awful tragedy.

And what do these messages have in common as we approach a New Year? They are a template for me, footsteps on the spiritual path. The most exciting thing about my responses is that I didn’t have to really think about them, not too much. Each act of selflessness for me,  long a closed,  selfish and confused man, is a prayer, and an act of affirmation.

This year, I seek to Open My Heart.