Heart Happens

I've been thinking about how we get (or don't) get each other's heart. I realized this is a metaphor for something. So it's not going to be described precisely but perhaps the conversation around something indescribable is the beauty of it.

I am fortunate to have a lot of friends that "get" my heart and I get theirs. We relate at what I would call a heart level. It's interesting that I'm quite sure we have dramatically different political perspectives, we are all over the place in how we understand (or misunderstand God) but that is immaterial to the enjoyment of our friendship.

I love something one of those friends posted this morning;

"I still crave the extravagant gesture, the woman spilling a year’s wages on the feet of Jesus, the rarest perfume, washing his feet and drying them with her hair, a gesture so sensual it left the other men in the room paralyzed with criticism, analysis, theoretical moral concern - for what - the poor?

Or was it just misdirected outrage in light of the glaring poverty of their own imaginations?" Linford Detweiler

Jesus' interest in people must have so strongly connected with their heart. And it seems like often the people he connected with so strongly and beautifully were people with wounded hearts.

So I think there is something about the wounding and breaking processes, the processes that were so wrong or so painful and feels unredeemable, of life that open us up to heart connection. It's so often true that those events that have been painful make us respond by hiding our hearts away but also I think they create a yearning to have our hearts opened up and connected with others.

At least with people that we think value our heart. Not our wisdom, our beauty, but our heart.

The mystery of that heart. Just as I believe God finds endless enjoyment watching us grow and act and be, we find people who connect with that open-ended invitation to be who we were created to be.

When we are in conversation with those people it feels open and inviting. We don't have to measure our words. We get to experiment in ways that perhaps have been shut down for years.

Silliness becomes possible. Wisdom unexpectedly shows up. Tears happen. Empathy connects us. We walk away invigorated and refreshed.

Rob Bell and my family, a parable

My kids don't have to struggle to be my kids that I love so much. They don't have to do anything. If they want to participate in that relationship all they have to do is rest in being my kids. I don't require that they love me, though I like that, they don't have to do special practices altho hey, if they give me a little red two-seater as I have requested, I'd love it.

I haven't given them a booklet on how to maintain that family relationship because thankfully at some point we developed a healthy "spirit" of the family that they can either grow in or grow away from. I'm not even requiring that Scott love me the same way Tim does, and I certainly don't need Jenny to keep track of Jesse's way of being with me.

As we love each other, our being with each other will grow and develop and change if it needs to, to allow us to continue to love each other in ways that work.

Are there specific ways of being and doing that will enhance the relationship? Yup! Could we develop and use a booklet to enhance the growth of love in the family? Sure enough.

But without referencing the "spirit" of the family, even following the instructions in that booklet won't produce more closeness in fact it could lead to disjointedness.

I have to wonder if part of the enjoyment of my family is that I just plain and simply think my kids are the best. Thinking of them, and the fact that they are where they are, just gives me pleasure.