“Heart” Stuff

Sergio Milandri gave this great talk on “the heart”. It somehow managed to wrestle my mind down and access that indefinite place so I thought I would share some of the gems with you.

So here’s a reminder:
1.There are no nerves in the heart. There is no direct connection from the brain to the heart. The way the body “speaks” to the heart is through chemicals which are sent from the middle brain through the blood stream. So when your heart starts pumping from fear or excitement it’s a response the heart receives in the blood. The heart in a sense then doesn’t have a “mind” in the conventional sense!!! The heart is about feeling.
2.Messages sent in the brain are quick. The synapses fire and almost instantly messages can be coded, rent, resent, analysed, deconstructed, reconstructed. The “heart” messages take some time to reach the heart…they lag a little, they require a bit longer to register, to interpret, to respond to.

Of course, my dodgy biology lesson (doctors may elaborate further) has a spiritual side-kick. Loving God with “heart” is different to loving God with “mind”. I can read a scriptural text with my “mind”. If I’ve read it before it will probably bore me. If I read it with my “heart”, I read it differently. I linger there, I wait. I tread with sensitivity. I am awake to the nuances of how my heart is responding, what the heart is feeling and saying. It’s a different knowing.

The mind thinks in straight lines. It dissects, cut things in pieces, its “emotions” are often knee-jerk reactions, cut and dried. The “heart” builds relational connections, it ponders things, it’s much slower, it takes time for the emotions to well up.

On the road Emmaus, the men spoke to a stranger about the events of Jesus’ death. They were deeply troubled but somehow this stranger’s words made sense to them. Eventually they realised it was Jesus who had been talking to them all along that road. In retrospect they recognised the presence of God. They said “Didn’t we feel our hearts burn within us?”

I guess I’m chasing the place of “heart”. I know the chase requires an inverse response, a waiting, a patience, a listening… “heart” needs space and time. It’s not conjured up, it can’t be faked. Like a lazy afternoon when after a long time you feel the wind whispering in your hair.