Prayer Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus the Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Reflection Speaking on behalf of God the prophet Jeremiah declares, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This all inclusive, unconditional promise is everything we humans need. God’s law is written on our hearts. Which is why “God alone brings into order (our) unruly wills and affections…” God alone brings peace and joy into “the swift and varied changes of the world.”
With God’s law written on our hearts why do we have so much difficulty navigating the swift and varied changes of the world?
I believe instead of listening to and acting on our heart inscribed wisdom we are distracted by arguments over the interpretation of laws that are cleverly crafted by humans aligned with their self interest rather than the will of God. Which brings us to the question, “What is the will or the law of God?”
Not only is it spelled out in the Decalogue given to Moses on Mount Sinai, if we are distracted by arguments over the precise application of the Ten Commandments we can find the heart of the law in Jesus’ response to the scribe who asks him, “What is the most important commandment?” Jesus answers, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mark 12.28-34)
These words are so familiar, surely they are written on our hearts. Still we flounder. How are we to love God ‘with all our heart?’ And what does ‘heart’ mean anyway? It must be more than a bloody pump delivering oxygen on behalf of the lungs to keep our cheeks rosy. It must be more than emotions delivered on lace trimmed Valentines.
As early as the third century Christian hermits living in the desert understood the heart to be an organ of perceptivity, the site of engagement with Divine Wisdom. The well respected theologian, Episcopal priest and teacher of nondual Christianity, Cynthia Bourgeault writes, “According to the great Christian, Jewish and Islamic wisdom traditions, the heart is first and foremost an organ of spiritual perception.” (The Heart of Centering Prayer, p54)
When we turn our minds to read the law written on our hearts we see beneath the surface of things to a deeper reality. Divine wisdom is written on our hearts and every single one of us has direct access to it. Here is the thing. Human access to Divine Wisdom has always been available. But, it has been covered up by religious institution and buried beneath doctrine. Borrowing language from early Eastern Orthodox spiritual writings Bourgeault counsels us, “Put the mind in the heart…. Put the mind in the heart…. Stand before the Lord with the mind in the heart.”(p53)
If you are rolling your eyes and thinking, “That is great for ancient hermits and really religious folks, but what does this have to do with me?” the answer is, “Everything.” Everything that has ever been missing, everything you have ever truly desired is written on your heart.”God’s law is written on our hearts and God alone can bring order to our wily wills and swiftly changing lives. All we have to do is stop and literally put our attention on our hearts ‘where true joy is found.’
When we consciously and conscientiously endeavor to “put the mind in the heart” we begin to break through the boundaries and barriers that prevent us from accessing the Wisdom written on our hearts. When we regularly take time to pause and deliberately fix our minds in our hearts we make ourselves available to experience Divine Wisdom. In Jeremiah’s words, “To know the Lord.”
We have spent a year bombarded by the ‘swift and varied changes of the world.’ Our affections have been disordered, our wills weakened and our patience worn out. Rather than looking for the latest shout out telling us what we ‘need to know’ about coronavirus, the stock market, the moral degradation of leaders, whatever news stirs up emotion and puts cash in the pockets of a few, it is time to put our minds in our hearts, to break through the noise that bars us from directly experiencing the promise Jeremiah made to humanity on behalf of God twenty six hundred years ago, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, (in other words, no longer are we to give priority to rules contrived by humans and the emotional pandering of ceaseless news cycles)… for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord…”
Listen to Cynthia Bourgeault elaborate on “Radiant Intimacy of the Heart” by clicking on the image at the upper right corner of this post.
Art by Alex Grey
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