What Makes Us Human? part two

A few weeks ago, I told the story of Nasrudin, a protagonist of Middle Eastern folklore.

One night, Nasrudin was approaching his house when he realized he had lost his key. He tried to look for it, but the night was so dark he could hardly see anything. He got down on his hands and knees, but it was still too dark to see. Moving backward toward a street lamp, he again got down on and began to search the area under the light. A neighbor came by and asked what he was doing. Nasrudin told him he had lost his key, so the neighbor also got down on his hands and knees to search with him. After a while, the neighbor asked, ‘Are you sure you lost the key here?’ “No, I didn’t lose it here; I lost it in my house," he answered. “Then why are you looking for it out here?” the neighbor demanded. “Because the light is so much better here,” he replied.

We are all like Nasruddin. When we search for our missing key, we look outside of ourselves, where the light seems good.

But the key is inside of us. It is inside of us; it resides in the heart, which is the heartbeat of what makes us human. I have no doubt that it is the heart that makes us human and constantly reminds us of how human we all are.

I want to be that human who is in with the heart, which not only makes me human, but whose deepest desires prove to us that the universe is not centered on us.

The deepest desires of the heart direct us toward that which is beyond ourselves, to things seemingly out of reach but toward which our vital energies are oriented.

The deepest desire of the heart is not to settle for the small, cramped places where we so often want to live.

The heart pulls us toward creative self-expression, expansiveness, and self-actualization. The heart calls us to genuine intimacy, and it points us toward release from the prison of isolated individuality.

The heart invites us to a place of connection, fulfillment, aliveness, and wholeness.

The deepest desire of the heart is an invitation to a place of both greater height and greater depth.

The heart encourages us to soar on the winds of the spirit (breath) and be grounded in the realities of dust.

The heart points us toward the transcendent self but encourages us to remain anchored in the mundane and immanent.



The deepest desire of the heart is for each of us to be all that we can humanly be. That isn’t an easy or small task, but it is a fulfilling task because apart from being human, what else can you be?

It is important to me, and I am sure to everyone in this congregation, that as people of faith, we look at each other through the prism of what our hearts require of us.

If the heart is the symbol of love, then it stands to reason that there is no other way to connect heart-to-heart with each other without the gift of love.

It is the heart that provides the eyes for love to see and hands for love to embrace. It is the heart that allows love to affirm. It is the heart that inspires love to engage.

It is the heart that mitigates any of our selfish desires and helps us look at each piece of our lives, broken or unbroken, unmitigated mess or not, evil or holy, dwelling in the abyss of human depression or being at the peak of life itself, that our connectedness with each other surpasses any of the challenges and gifts that life may throw our way.



As we prepare to celebrate Easter, I am reminded of the sacrificial love that pours from a heart that refuses to be consumed by anything that pretends to be more than human or less than human.

Easter, if you agree with me, honor the gift of being human. It is as if to say that we cannot abandon the sanctity of being human, nor can we trade the gift of being human for anything else. This is because Easter crowns our ineffable joys and assures us that we embody the reason our Savior died for us. That is not all, Easter reminds us of the value of a heart that makes life both possible and worth living.

Easter makes me want to live because I have the heart to live and a heart to love.

Here’s a quote by James Baldwin: “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from view, yet there is still a clear-eyed, loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.”

To be human is to have hearts that mirror each other - not a perfect mirroring, but a mirroring anyway. It is the kind of mirroring that makes you see yourself come alive in the other person.

And when you see yourself come alive in the other, you not only magnify each other, but you magnify the greatest gift which each can give to the other.

This Easter season, I am deeply reminded of the sacred duty to come alive in you. That is because of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have been given a new lease of life, to come alive in each other, to magnify each other, and to fill each other with abundant life.

In a sense, Easter can only come alive in me if I am willing to come alive in you. And it is not only because my heart is connected to yours, but because my heart touches your heart in a way that neither you nor I can explain.

If we are all connected to both dust and breath, then maybe, just maybe, Easter's real story is that it awakens the heart to see why it is that one organ whose beat makes us human.

Happy Easter, my beloved.



Manny+

(this is the second excerpt from my Wednesday Evening in Lent program)