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My daughter is fascinated by lava. “It’s liquid fire, rocks on fire!” She is mystified that the rest of the family does not share her intense appreciation of lava. I believe there is a simple explanation: my daughter’s heart is more passionate than the rest of ours. I know as a truth her heart feels things more deeply that my worn out, puny one.
Sometime I think I would like to be more like her—yet I realize she not only responds to things with more curiosity, more fascination, more humor; she also feels more pain. My daughter is an exceptional education teacher. She is aware of the poverty and unpredictability that desecrate many of her students’ lives. This awareness brings her to tears. She recently saw a photo of two beluga whales who were being kept in a child’s swimming pool; she called me and asked again and again, “Why? How could anyone do that to these animals?” I know the answer: many of us have hardened hearts. To be passionately compassionate entails pain—and many of us allow our hearts to be become rock-like rather than feel such intense emotions.
I am left wondering what it would be like to have such a heart. What would my life look like if I felt with greater passion? What would it be like to care as deeply - say as Jesus did - about all human beings, about all of creation? It would mean allowing Love to warm my hardened heart so that Love would flow forth like molten lava.