Only with the Heart

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” So says The Fox in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. As a male human being (and an mature one at that), I naturally tend toward logic and cold hard reason. Too much emotion is not only a place where I do not want to go, but also a place from which I often run. Yet God has seen fit to give me a wife and a life that has and is changing all that. I’ve come to agree with The Fox. We miss most (if not all) of real life if we limit our vision to the intellect. Of course I’m not suggesting that we should be all emotion, but the heart needs to be at the heart if we are to live a life worth living. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us this as well. Jesus was (and is) nothing if not all about the heart. He wept at the death of Lazarus though he knew he would soon raise him from the dead. He pined over the unbelief of Jerusalem. He refused to condemn the woman at the well. His heart literally bled out to death so that men, women and children could run to the embrace of the Father. I guess you could call him the ultimate bleeding heart liberal. He was only harsh with religious pretenders, which gets us back to true life, true sight and the heart. Religious pretenders (pretending not only to others but also to themselves) are by definition the ones who do not (or cannot) see with the heart. Saint-Exupéry’s book moves me greatly, and it is among the many treasured things which God has used to bring me to a better place of seeing rightly, with the heart.