Ordinary Heart.

H,

There is no denying the depth of human failure. We see it in the way the world really operates, not the plaster-thin tale of a prosperous earth, but in the poverty of most of the earth, in the fact that we are told that the richest of us can end poverty, and they never will. This does not make them evil. It makes them human. It is proof of our ordinary heart.

And, perhaps, we are looking to high into the thing. We can easily scan the path of everyday life and interactions. We may, not so easily, but more vitally, turn the spotlight on ourselves and begin to see who we are in light of the great aspirations of the spiritual life. There are no moral or physical miracles bursting out on our pilgrimage. We know we do not often measure up to the high value of that calling we received years ago. The word is choked by the world. We find “rhema” for our selfishness. We redefine the wheel. We make selfishness an art-form and selflessness unwise and unscripted. We suffer from that most human of maladies: an ordinary heart.

Brother in arms, this is not a rallying cry or prophetic shout(out) in the wilderness. It is a slow realization of the limits of our human state. We used to cry “I need you/lord i need you/every hour…”
It is much more serious than that. We cannot ascend unless He descends. I used to think there was some fixing to do. No. It is a brand new care needed. There has to be nothing else left of the ordinary heart for the eternal seed to truly flourish. Everything else we do is a negotiation.

These fragile vessels we live in hold no eternal worth. The heart is the thing we are told to guard. There lies the calling card and the only thing that will not die. Our pilgrimage is to experience the things that will not work so we can learn to hold to the thing that will. We are here to die, in all that absurdity, in order that we can have the real life of value. This is not some metaphor or irony or oxymoron for the pleasure of playing with words. It explains why we fall so much and much more in secret. It tells us why we run from our flaws and into our promise. It spells out for us why the ordinary heart is always telling us to put our first foot forward. We need a lie to keep on holding on to a sense of self against the tide of the world speaking against our worth.