The word “cor” is not misspelled. It’s not an English word. It’s the Latin word that means “heart.” From that Latin word comes our word, core. Our hearts are at the core of who we are.
The word “connection” is an English word rooted in Latin: nectere, to bind, tie, fasten; to join, bind, or fasten together, connect. We use the word connection all the time in English to mean all these things the Latin word means.
I chose these two words as a name for this site and for the work I do in spiritual direction because they both say something about what I value. We know now that the thinking cells of the body, neurons, exist not only in our brains, but they are in our hearts and in our guts, too. When it comes to a full bodied consideration of something, when we really put our “hearts and minds” into a problem or a question or a relationship, we really can be present with our heads, hearts and guts. I want to be heart-present, whole-bodied-present to my life and to the myriad of things that my life allows me to encounter.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve found myself in search of connection. Examples could fill pages, and you don’t have time for that, so just a few. Why did I have a particular experience that changed my course of action today (or sometimes, my whole life)? Why, when I looked into the eyes of each of my three children when they were born was it so clear to me that there was already a whole, complete being present, and not some blank slate waiting on us to turn it into something? How is it that I can read an ancient poem or listen to an interview with someone across the world and hear in the words of people so far away in time and distance experiences that I recognize as my own? I have come to the conclusion that the mysterious word “spirituality” is nothing more and nothing less than allowing ourselves to be curious about connections and choosing to make them.
Two questions most often come up, one way or another, in a spiritual direction session: how is your heart today? and what sort of connections do you want to make with that? Cor-connections.
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