There you will find the door to your heart.
When I was first assigned to a prayer house, I’d get antsy in the poustinia at times. I experienced something I call the “tape loop” phenomenon. My mind would start chattering: “So-and-so did this. We should really do that. I don’t know what I’m going to do about blah-blah. What are we going to do about such-and-such?”
This would go on for about 40 minutes. Then two minutes of quiet. Then it would start again: “What am I going to do about blah-blah?” Instant replays of the week, conversations—40minutes worth, around and around and around.
This was deeply humiliating. It was not my idea of a prayer life. And it was a real blow to find out I was such a boring person! Not only was I not communing in depth with God, but I had a 40-minute tape loop in my head that wouldn’t quit. Furthermore, the content was nothing to boast about.
Week to week the tape changed, but it always ran about 40 minutes long, again and again. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that some people are like broken records. I discovered that I was, too! The fact is, we all are. Some people’s tapes might be longer than others, and some have juicier content, but basically, we’ve got a tape loop in our head and, at any given time, it runs its length and starts over again.
The good part about poustinia is that the tape loop plays for 23 hours or so and then self-destructs. Then you have inner silence. This is one of the great gifts of poustinia — it wears out your tape loop.
God will listen you into silence. He will listen and listen and not condemn you for being a bore, for being trivial, or for whatever else your particular loop reveals. No one else will do this. Only God can listen for 23 hours, if necessary, until your tape loop at last wears out, and you have silence and inner peace. It is a tremendous gift.
In addition, I’ve discovered that you can shorten the lifespan of the tape by asking a few questions: “Why did this bother me? What do I really want? What in this situation is sticking to me? “You get answers to such questions, and the loop stops. The answers take you to another level of being. This may not feel too pleasant at first, but it’s there you will find the door to your heart.
In a Russian poustinia, the door was always very low. You had to bow low just to physically enter the poustinia. This is what I’ve discovered about the door to the heart. You have to bow very low to enter the door of your heart.
You have to accept your humanity. You accept yourself at this particular moment of your life: the aspects of yourself you like, as well as all the unfinished parts. There’s a point in all this which is best described by a word used mostly by children: it’s yucky!
Yucky, in the full sense of the word, means slightly nauseating, somewhat painful, definitely embarrassing. Speaking for myself, I had a hard time accepting that although I had great spiritual desires, I also had a40-minute tape loop in my head with very petty content.
But when I bowed before it, guess what? The door began to open. You know those bookcases where you press a secret button and a door suddenly swings open, revealing a hidden passage? It was much like that.
I’d been looking, looking, looking! Where was the door to my heart, anyway? All of a sudden, I accepted the fact that I have a 40-minute tape of trivia in my head; I accepted the reality of myself, and presto: it was as if I’d pressed the secret button, and the door to my heart began to swing open.
It was very exciting!
Originally published in Restoration, January 2000 by deceased staff member, Martha Shepherd.
