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Speaks the early Syrian Church Father, Pseudo-Macarius (c. 4th Century): "There are ... infinite depths to the human heart." He continues, in his Homilies:
There are found reception rooms, bedrooms, doors and antechambers, many offices and exits. There is found the office of justice and injustice. There is death and there is life. There takes place upright business as well as the contrary.
(Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies, Ed. and Trans. George A. Maloney, S.J.,
The Classics of Western Spirituality)
John Wesley and The United Methodist Church share with Pseudo-Macarius a "religion of the heart." Wesley wrote in his diary, July 30, 1736, "I read Macarius and sing."
However, this heart religion is forthright about the contradictions that live within the human heart. Again, Pseudo-Macarius, reflecting insights comparable to C. J. Jung's teaching on the personal and collective unconscious:
The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. There also are rough and uneven roads; there are precipices. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the Kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasures of grace--all things are there.
Proverbs 4.23 reminds us of our responsibility to diligently guard our heart, the core of will and thought:
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life. (ESV)
Or, as another translation has the passage:
Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do. (NLT)
Nobility and baseness live as potentials in the human heart. The human heart can lead to a life of prodigious graciousness or perverse selfishness. The heights of holiness and the depths of sinfulness present themselves for our choosing and within the human heart. Each one of us must decide, and our decision makes all the difference in our lives.
Imagine that you had a well in your yard, from which you would drink and give drink to family and friends. Would you use it also to dump your trash? If you did, then would you expect the water from the well for others and yourself to be fit and tasty? Would you complain of its dirty taste and trashy appearance, as though you were not responsible for its quality? Then guard your will and thought and do not let just anything enter and find a home there. We each will imbibe of the well of the heart, and the heart is the wellspring of life.
Reflection
Do you think that what you read and view is fitting for the heart that longs to follow Christ and obey his will? How might you better nurture your heart with the matters to make stronger your will and more pure your thoughts, that you might even more reflect the image of Christ and the life of human dignity as a creation of God?
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