My husband’s birthday was ten days after mine. The first year we were married, it was clear that Alan did not have the same understanding of birthdays that I had. So, when his birthday came ten days later, I showered him with good food, attention, and wifely love. I thought he would get the idea and remember the next year.
Well, no, he didn’t. The next year he seemed unusually distant. I showered him with love again ten days later—and talked about my disappointment. He seemed to understand.
But he didn’t. The third year, when he got distant on my birthday, I exploded. In the argument that followed, a piece of information came out that softened my heart and changed everything.
You see, I had always known that when Alan was 13 there had been a terrible car accident. His brother Kurt, age 7, had died.
What I didn’t know was the date when it happened: the same date as my birthday.
Once that truth was known, everything changed. Alan hadn’t even been aware that some deep part of him was back on a mountain road in Italy. The grief and trauma of what happened became conscious again and poured out. I saw my myopic selfishness and repented of it on the spot. Forever after, we celebrated our birthdays together on the weekend between them.
Both of us had suffered from hardened hearts. Alan’s hardened heart came from trauma. Trauma (definition: something bad that happens that is greater than our mental and emotional capacity to process it) had put a protective coating around his heart to protect him from the memory. In doing so, it had also put a wall around his ability to be present to others—me.
My hardened heart came from lack of empathy, immaturity, self-absorption, and disappointed expectations. I didn’t know or understand what was going on with Alan; I was thinking of myself.
The whole incident brought us closer and nurtured the bonds of companionate love that were being built in those early years of marriage. It was a lesson we never forgot.
Today’s Readings
One way you could look at today’s readings is that they give us pictures of softened hearts—from the inside and the outside.
In the first reading, the prophet Daniel has had a dream about the repeated cycles of foreign domination for the Jewish nation. It was such an overwhelming dream that Daniel lay sick from it for several days. Then he read a selection from the prophet Jeremiah that helped him understand it. His heart was softened. He experienced the need for deep repentance in the people and he longed for it with the thirst of those who see their sins in the midst of consequences of their actions. From inside a softening heart he acknowledges sin, and, from a softened heart, begs for God’s heart to soften:
“Lord, great and awesome God,
you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you
and observe your commandments!
We have sinned, been wicked and done evil;
we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws….
In the Gospel, Jesus tells us what a softened heart looks like from the outside. He tells us how to get one:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”
God Promises a Lot
God must value soft hearts tremendously. Look at what he promises here:
- If we stop judging, we will not be judged.
- If we stop condemning, we will not be condemned.
- If we forgive, we will be forgiven.
- If we give, others will give generously to us—more than we need.
- God’s justice to us will reflect our mercy to others.
But how do we access those promises?
Low Pot
Virginia Satir was a famous pioneer marriage and family therapist. She often used beautiful metaphors in her work. One that I often use with clients when the difficulties of marriage have hardened hearts is her image of “low pot.”
Beans are a staple in the diet of people around the world. And probably around the world you have the same experience we have here in Kentucky with a pot of brown beans. You start out with a full pot of beans. You soak them overnight, then cook them with some seasoning for at least a couple of hours. The beans are good! And, honestly, they are even better the next day when they are creamier. They are so good, we go into the pot again and again to have some more. But then, about the third day the juice is gone. Maybe the beans on the bottom of the pan are even scorched a little. You are down to the dregs of the pot—low pot. The beans have lost their savor. You eat the rest because you don’t waste food—but without enjoyment.
Judging, condemning, resistance to forgiveness, stinginess—all these signs of a hardened heart—happen and grow when we get to “low pot” in our relationship with God and/or others. Emotionally, we are overcome with with an insideous, hidden greed. Selfishness rules. When that happens to me, I can feel the walls around my heart. Other people’s problems just bounce off that wall—just like what happened on my birthday those first years of marriage.
Healing and Softened Hearts
Today’s readings call us to soften our hearts—and the Gospel tells us how: Be generous.
There is something about acts of generosity that causes them to soften hearts. They literally give us a new pot of beans in our soul. I have seen it again and again in families. I have experienced it again and again in my own life.
Sometimes, it is too hard to forgive the person we need to forgive. It is too hard to stop judging someone who is doing serious (or even small) wrong to us. It is too hard to let go of the wall that condemns and distances us from trauma, memory, or being hurt by others.
Sometimes, we have to begin with generosity to someone else. Random acts of kindness. Goodness to others—even just smiling at co-workers or people on the street. Those actions gently work to soften our hearts and recover generosity and mercy within us.
But today’s scriptures also call us to be where Daniel was: repentant of our hardened, sinful hearts that have stopped behaving in loving ways. While we soften our walls by doing good things for others, we pray for the generosity of heart that trades our overdone beans for fresh ones of active love:
Prayer:
Lord, help me to be generous of heart with ______. Soften my heart. Bless my efforts to be generous with others. Lead me, though, to true repentance. Give me understanding enough, mercy enough, sense of safety enough, generosity enough, willingness to forgive enough—that I can genuinely let go of my walls and see Your Presence in our struggles, then let Your Presence heal us both. Amen.
