A rich guy followed the king of his region to France to fight during medieval times. In the middle of a battle, he had a vision and knew there had to be another way. Soon after, he went back to his lands, and soon headed towards Rome. Once he got there, young Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone (1182-1226) soon gave away all his worldly possessions and started begging near the Vatican. Over the rest of a lifetime, Giovanni came to be called exclusively by his nickname “Francis” to recognize the love he had for the place he’d fought. He went on to become a monk, founded a religious order, and performed miracles several times. Only two years after his death he was named a saint, and has been honored as the patron saint of the environment and animals, and is one of the two patron saints of Italy.
During his life, Saint Francis’s teachings were important to his country and all of Catholicism. He roamed the countryside teaching, spreading the Gospel, and living his life like he thought Jesus Christ had lived his.
Whatever the reason, Saint Francis arrived at very deep understandings about the nature of the Universe. In his study about the character of all things in relationship to each other, Francis stumbled into one of the tenants of the Heartspace Teachings. He wrote, “No one is to be called an enemy. All are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourself.”
In the same way the Buddhist believes there are no obstacles, only different ways to get somewhere from here, Saint Francis believed there is no way another person can harm you- only different ways for you to understand other people.
Perfectly engaged in the worlds within and around us at all times, Heartspace shows that there’s no way for anything to work against us, since everything is constantly working for us. Even the most humiliating, deceiving, and relentlessly horrifying circumstances and people are merely different ways for us to understand ourselves in the Universe.
Every single thing in life—inanimate or in motion—is engagement. In this same way, St. Francis was teaching us that every person individually is truly responsible for themselves to the core. There’s no other person who can take our happiness, joy, understanding, or peace away from us. This is true all ways, in all ways.
The agreements we make through Heartspace, including the invisible strands that connect to all things everywhere. Coloring ideas, actions, people, and outcomes on one person allows us to see the intricate ways way relate we may suffer from.
Adam F.C. Fletcher 