May love "fall in"

A great rabbi taught his disciples to memorize and contemplate the teachings and to place the payers and holy words on their hearts.  One day a student asked the rabbi why he always used the phrase “on your heart” and not “in your heart.”  The master replied  “Only time and grace can put the essence of these stories in your heart.  Here we recite and learn them and put them on our hearts hoping that someday when our heart breaks they will fall in.”

          Jack Kornfield, A Lamp in the Darkness

______________________________________

 

My heart is broken

As I hear the stories of the parents, and the doctors

And hear the stories of the little children from Uvalde

 

My heart is broken

As I read of 10-year-old bodies torn apart

Until even their parents couldn’t recognize them

My heart is broken

 

As I think of my granddaughter

Also 10, my heart breaks again.

 

As I think of those parents and grandparents who will never again

Welcome those children home

My heart breaks again.

 

My heart is broken

Each day as the news brings word

Of another shooting

More death

More grief

 

It is not just guns

My heart is broken by injustice

And by a badly damaged planet

And by the oppression and minimization of women

And by the demonization of people whom God created LGBTQI+

And by voter suppression

 

The ills of the world seem overwhelming

and they press on my heart

and they fall in

into the deep place

that sacred place

 

where they are greeted

and transformed

and sometimes healed

by the Christ in me

 

the pain is transformed into compassion

the anger into action

the hate into (I hope) understanding

 

but I do not understand

those whose hearts have been so hardened

that little seems to get in

 

what makes for a hard heart?

A lust for power?

Greed?

A selfishness that cannot look past

Individual benefits and rights?

 

I do not understand how those who

gush over the rights of a cluster of cells

can look upon the decapitated body of a 10-year-old

and vote to allow the weapon that did such damage

to circulate freely

 

Jesus once taught us the way we should be (the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke)

What a blessed life looks like

It looks like vulnerability (poor in Spirit)

Like the ability to mourn

It looks like humility

It looks like a fierce commitment to justice

It looks like compassion and forgiveness.

It looks like authenticity and integrity

It looks like peacemaking (not violence)

It looks like a willingness to do what is RIGHT no matter the cost.

Even when it costs you votes and you get attacked on Facebook

 

That is what a soft heart looks like

And open heart

 

A hard heart?

It looks like self-focus

Like detachment

It looks like arrogance

It looks like injustice

It looks like ignoring the pain of others (since it is not your pain)

It looks like accepting lies as truth

It looks like violence

It looks like a willingness to do anything to get and keep power

 

It looks like choosing dominance over service

Accumulation over generosity

Retribution over forgiveness

Guns over children

 

I have to admit

I am angry at those representatives who voted against gun control

I am going to be angry at those Senators who will vote against gun control

I am going to find it hard to forgive them

I am going to rage at their thoughts and prayers

Which are not backed by meaningful action

 

And I am going to hope

That someday

Their hearts too will break

And love, and compassion, and truth

And justice

Will fall in