Leaders strive to win over the hearts and minds of their people. They are the essential tools needed to move a nation. The mind can be analyzed and understood, but the heart is more of a mystery. What we feel and the paths we take; they are clues to the heart.
BLESSED HEART
There are many adjectives for the heart. Once, while making my way home from elementary school, friends chided me for having a soft heart. Not exactly a compliment, when you’re struggling to be a tough guy on the playground. As a young hunter, I packed a twenty-two rifle, along with the resolve to be hardhearted enough when the time came. A few years later, my heart was stolen when I fell in love. Not long after that, it was broken when love turned away.
Over the years, life has taught me about all kinds of hearts. There are joyful hearts and sad hearts, aching hearts and troubled hearts, the downhearted. Some hearts are strong – others weak. Some are warm – others cold. There are hearts that are unbelievably full and many more that are closer to empty. And there are blessed hearts. It was a blessed heart that taught me the most about my own.
To understand, you have to imagine life in a family of five children. It was often hectic, even chaotic, and for my parents, there wasn’t much time for all that needed to be said or done. So life moved along, but not without its moments. If we weren’t fighting or lost in play, a few of those moments would find us being thoughtful, kind or loving. I’m not saying it was anything like routine, but when it happened my mother would often say, “Well, bless your heart.”
The expression may have been born of my mother’s Irish heritage. I don’t know. I only know that it was natural for her to say it. Chances are we didn’t even know what we had done. We were just being kids, trying on the feelings that come from the process of family life. But when she said it, she underscored something that was important for our heart to know.
I’m sure there were other ways that my folks gave guidance, many of them even more subtle. But whatever the form, they all came from the heart.
For our parents…mine and yours, those with a blessed heart or in need of one…
BLESS YOUR HEARTS
Bless your hearts for they have grown bigger with the passage of time.
Bless your hands for they have held and fed and wiped and tucked us into bed.
Bless your ears for they have heard our steps and falters, our whoops and wails; our heart’s beating.
Bless your voices for they have been music to our ears.
Bless your eyes for they have seen our lives unfold and left them to their unfolding.
Bless your arms and legs for they have lifted and carried us through the hard times in our lives.
Bless your minds for their understanding and their desire to be understood.
Bless your lives for they have worked and played and rested well along the way.
But most of all, bless your hearts because they hold your love.