A Heart of Flesh

A script I wrote some months ago for a faith-based television programme... it wasn't commissioned though :-( Thought I'd share it with everyone

When was the last time my heart swelled with pain … upon seeing someone else’s suffering?

When was the last time my spirit sent up a spontaneous and fervent plea – “Stop Lord!” – unable to behold someone else’s pain… because the sight touched me to the quick?

Was it back when I was a child? Used to being thwarted and chastened by those more powerful than I? And feeling a sense of solidarity with others similarly powerless. 

Some of us are still tender-hearted way past our childhood – but our heart beats wildly only when we see an animal suffer or a homeless child. We don’t really cry inner tears for that friend who has failed an exam, the neighbour who faces financial ruin, the colleague who is dissatisfied with life or the distant relative who is battling addiction. Better them than us, we say don’t we, in the heart of our hearts?

We, middle class Indians, children of stable marriages, ourselves in societally-sanctioned stable marriages, having children we’re proud of, homes we’re proud of, friends we can depend on… we’re cocooned in our large comfort zones. 

We don’t have the breakdown of the family, the crippling loneliness and self-doubt that some other societies grapple with on a daily basis. Buffered by our family and friends, we spend our entire lives untouched by the brokenness, the poverty of spirit that is so precious in the eyes of the Lord.

Sure we feel rage when we see injustice and poverty. But does it go deeper? To a more sincere level? I’m talking of the compassion for another that rocks one's sense of well-being. The fellow feeling that is almost unbearable in its intensity. It is actual physical pain – in the region of the heart.

Of course we all do our bit – we pay our tithes and taxes, treat our servants fairly, pray sincerely, or try to pray sincerely, for world peace and end to global hunger. But in all our well-meant actions, we’re only as one rending our clothes when God has called us to rend our hearts. 

It may sound harsh but until we have experienced what it means to be broken we won’t know what beauty brokenness may hold. What it means to “feel”. They are precious… the attempts to step out of our comfort zones.