As incarnate creatures, our first impressions of others often are based on what we see.
We each initially tend to notice one or two physical features more than others, whether it be eyes, teeth, cheeks, hair, mouth, nose, legs, arms, etc.
Personally, I am most often drawn to one’s eyes; as the old saying goes, they are the “windows to the soul.”
I find this to be true.
If you look with the eyes of your heart, you can gather a great deal of information about others by looking into their eyes. One of my favorite quotes about this reality is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in “The Little Prince”:
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
What do you see when you look into another human’s eyes – or, for that matter, into an animal’s eyes?
Are they lit up? Are they hollow? Are they expressive? Are they steeled? Do they look directly back at you? Do they look everywhere but directly at you?
Our eyes reflect the vast oceans of our hearts and all the darkness and light they hold within them.
“The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet there also are dragons and there are lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. And there are rough and uneven roads; there are precipices. But there is also God, also the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the Apostles, the treasures of grace – there are all things.” – Pseudo-Macarius
This month, the church reflects on the sacred heart, on the heart of the divine, as perfectly expressed in Jesus Christ, and how that heart of love is tender, compassionate, gentle, forgiving, infinite, holy … and more and more and more.
As unique, expressive offspring of the divine heart, our hearts are infinite, too. And, in the divine plan, our hearts are sacred too.
I have long been devoted to the sacred heart.
It fascinates me, most likely because I tend to live in and experience this world from my heart.
This is not unlike the whole conundrum of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
Do I live in and experience this world from my heart because that is how my soul’s unique print is designed? Or is it because of my devotion to the sacred heart, and the graces I’ve gained from drawing near to it, that I live from that core place in my being?
I tend to believe it is both.
I think we are all designed to live from our hearts, to greater or lesser degrees, as part of our unique soul prints. Even those who specialize in using their brains in fields such as engineering, medicine, mathematics, science and electronics have hearts. They are not immune to experiencing the various colors that compose our core spiritual organ.
On the other hand, I think we all can also intensify that innate heart experience by meditating on and reflecting on the heart of God, and how God – in Jesus – welcomed the poor and outcast, created community, called his followers away from a life of violence and deception to a life of peace and holy truth, and healed all manner of physical and spiritual ills in his earthy ministry.
Who is this Jesus that many people consider their “savior” for being crucified for their sins?
Who is the man behind that man on the cross, and how did he live, and how did he treat others, and how did he teach us to live in the Sermon on the Mount, which generated the eight beatitudes – all overflowing with heart-based wisdom?
These are the real questions, and these questions cannot be answered through spiritual bypassing with pious platitudes.
It takes a lifetime of real-life joys and sorrows, big gains and big losses, struggles, resistance, surrender, heart wins and heartbreaks, to learn and relearn the composition of this man’s sacred heart and, in the process, to transform our hearts into the sacred vessels they were created to be, as well.
- SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column that examines spirituality. Contact Jerrilyn Zavada at jzblue33@yahoo.com to share how you engage your spirit in your life and community.