STUPID MEAT HEART
Confession: I miss my heart of stone. You know what stone doesn't do? HURT. Now I have this new heart, this meat-heart, all soft and squishy and breakable. Every day, Facebook and Twitter present me daily with dozens of injustices, outrages, and tragedies; I walk by sleeping bags in doorways; my friends lose their jobs; my family falls ill. It's just. So. Much. My meat-heart hurts. And hurts, and hurts, for these people, for those people, for all the people the world - until the only possible response is to turn it all off and walk away. Then, of course, I feel guilty about it. Now I've somehow managed to care too much AND not enough. Why do I have to have a heart that FEELS?
Because, I think, it's the kind of heart that God has. In Jesus' interaction with the adulterous woman, we see the God-heart in action; mercy over judgment. We see it when he shares bread with Judas. We see it when he heals and feeds... and when he weeps for Lazarus. God's heart hurts too.
So when I hurt with those who are hurting, I connect not only with them but with the divine. It is not merely painful, but mysterious and formative. And it's okay if I filter my feeds so that I only see the small portion of the day's tragedies I'm capable of handling. I don't have to hold it all. That's God's job.
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