2008_1030 Jean Pickrell Memorial
How can you say what it is? What is this thing, the open heart? It is just two words but I’d bet that there aren’t three of four, more likely fifty or a hundred different ideas as to what it is, this open heart.
It isn’t the same thing as an open mind. Perish the thought. Open minds are highly prized these days, far above the open heart. Open minds will talk and they will listen. They will be open to conversion, willing to discuss and dispute and to come to an agreement, they will spend hours in argument without ever tiring and even if they have love and respect in their cores, they are still the host and home of contention and conflict.
An open mind is great if you are trying to find the truth.
An open heart is what you have when you already know the truth. Beyond dispute, beyond argument, the open heart always says yes, always says welcome, without discussion or debate because there is nothing else to do, the time for discussion is over, where there is need, you will find the open heart.
But it not the same as open arms. Flung wide in welcome as if to say, “come to me” they are the symbol of this world’s ideas about love an hope and home but they are not an open heart. Arms flung wide in welcome are only open on one side, even at their widest they are only standing in welcome to half of the world an the other half is behind them, lost, not in sight. This is what the world thinks of when they think of love and welcome but that is just because our sight in this world is dimmed with the trials and sins of the flesh, the worries of the day and the fear of tomorrow.
Not so the open heart.
Clear-eyed and honest, unwilling to turn away from anyone, let alone half of the whole world; the open heart stands in welcome and love for everyone without regard to where or who, to rich or poor, to worthy or despicable. Open hearts radiate love and home in all directions without discretion and the world might even fear them, if they could see the open heart, or understand them at all.
No, the truly open heart, arms wrapped tight around whoever might be in the most need, they are not what the world might expect, might know.
And not the open eyes. Feeble little instruments of sight that they are. Our eyes, even opened in hope still can only see what it is that we think that they should be seeing. Prejudice can cloud their vision, fear can make them turn this way and that, pride can lift them above the lost and the wretched and what good are they then?
The open heart sees with far more excellent sight. Renewed by the blessing of Christ, the open heart can see all as brother and sister, all as mother and daughter, father and son and most of all, all as the beloved of God. The sight of the open heart is the pure sight of love, spotting the love and blessing of God in all that they behold, seeing every day, every breath, every kiss and every sunrise and the sweetest of signs that there is a better home waiting for us all, beckoning to us from beyond.
The open heart is the beacon of God’s love; Christ-like willingness to kneel at the foot of the lowliest child and let them know that they are loved. Like a bolt of lightning given flesh and bone the open heart walks among us as the living blessing from heaven, showing us that the world could be better, would be better if God’s will were truly done.
To know them is to love them, the open heart is like the open face of a child, unspoiled by the ravages of this world or of time. Have you ever noticed that you just want to hug a child? Like the open heart, they are innocent and pure love and they draw us closer, we wish to be seen and known and touched. The open heart is the kiss of the savior on our forehead telling us that we are the beloved child.
To know them is to love them.
To lose them is to know a little bit of our own death. Being in so bright sunshine can only make the world dimmer when it fades and we stumble in the darkness that the rest of the world lives in every day, having never known the true Sun of love and hope in their lives.
Christ is the light of the eternal city, but the Open heart is the glimpse of that light in our lives here on earth and Jean was this heart, open and true for so many for so long.
And the question that no one wants to ask haunts us now, as we wait in the dark of our grief.
What now?
If it was the light of Christ shining through this open heart that brought us so close to the sun, so much happiness. Let us then resolve to give honor to that light and to open up our hearts just a little, shining with the light that we received for so long, so that the world Jean would have had us live in, is the world that we help to build in her memory.
An open heart is not of this world. It is like a star fallen from heaven. Even if we cannot understand it or hold onto it forever, we can be forever changed by it. And so many have been that the light goes on, in all of us.