Music in the attachment
Dear
Here’s another story for you.
It was written by one of our Jesuit Fathers. He wrote it long ago.
It is a beautiful story and I wish I had written it myself!
Maybe, in a way, I did write it myself. And it could be the story of my own heart!
Or, just as easily, it could be the story of your heart as well…
If it isn’t, you could make it so if you want to….
Now read on…..
photo : terryq
The Story of My Heart
Parmananda Diwarkar sj.
I had a heart. I still have one of course and it is the same old heart I’ve always had, but it’s so different now. I just can’t help speaking in the past tense when I think of way back.
I had quite a small heart then, and I rather liked it that way because it was easier to look after and keep clean and smart. Like those people who imagine it is simpler to run a home if there are no children messing around. Well, it isn’t; and I soon found it was very dull keeping my heart all nice and trim and nobody to enjoy it with. So I started letting in the neighbours – not just anybody, mind you, but the really nice people. Things brightened up considerably after that, and I let in a few more.
Next thing, I had to enlarge the place. I got a wall knocked down, and as usual during the building operations there were all sort of characters wandering around with or without business. The funny thing was, I really enjoyed rubbing shoulders with this motley crowd. I had been very shy all along – and selfish too – but by now I was used to company, and thought making friends was real fun.
So when my heart was all done up again, I left the door wide open, so that people could see what a cosy place it was. And I stood just at the entrance, to let them know they were welcome; also like this I could meet and greet everybody without actually inviting them all in – mean to say, I had to draw the line somewhere. But I soon got tired of this arrangement. I felt mean and miserable that perhaps just those who really needed a helping hand might get left out; and besides, as I got to know the passers-by better I found them such nice people that I did not mind one bit if they all got in and made themselves comfortable. Occasionally there did crop up a nasty character, but I thought to myself that this was the most pitiable of them all, and let him in just the same.
My large-scale entertaining brought trouble, naturally; and it still brings trouble – not to my heart, for I am as happy as could be, but for the rest of me, my hands and feet and so on: I have to run errands for my quests, or do odd jobs for them; sometimes I have to sit up at night to catch up with the work. But I’ll say I enjoy it. I have lots of fun all round and particularly with the nasty ones. It’s like a game, getting surly people to mellow and blossom out; or ungrateful and thoughtless people to wake up and take notice. One good trick I use with the difficult sort is to ask them to help me break down one more wall and add yet another extension to my heart. By the time the job is done they are simply bursting with good fellowship and feel as if they owned the place – which is exactly what I want.
As a rough guess I would say that by now there is nobody around who has not dropped in, at least once and casually, into my heart. You, who read these lines, have surely been there. I need not give you my name, you know me well enough. I’m always about. The fact is I am everybody. The story of my heart is the story of every heart. Yours too. If you think not, it’s just that your story has not got as far as this – yet. But it will; least ways, it can. Depends on you.
But it may also be that your tale has progressed a great deal further than mine. Right now I do not know how that could be, for I cannot see what more could be added to the story as I have told it. But I am wiser now than to think there can’t be any more to say. Way back at the beginning when I had a smart little heart, I thought it would be that way all along; and at every step I’ve been tempted to think that that was all. But I know better now, and I am always on the look out, half eager, half-fearful, asking myself what next. Makes me feel quite creepy at times, like having someone following you in the dark, but I know from experience that God never asks for more till he knows I can easily say yes.
This time, though, I really wonder if there’s anything more to ask. But I’m wary. You never can tell. There’s no knowing what God will think up next. I can’t open my doors any wider, but perhaps he will ask me to knock off the walls altogether, so that there’s nothing but door all over; so that there’s no heart left really but only a wide open space where His sun can shine and His breezes play and His children stroll in freely and settle down to enjoy the warmth and freshness and remember their Father, and never even suspect that they are right in the midst of my heart.
It is wonderful that we can make ourselves open-hearted and beautiful if we really want to…
My wish for you is that you want this for yourself too. And you will make it happen. In a big real way!
And more love and joy and celebration to you because of that!
Even more as the years pass by and your heart opens out to more and more people…. as their hearts open out to you!
Take care. Lots of love, Terry
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