April 5, 2023
Our Weekly Meditation
“If our heads are full, and our hearts are empty, we will just tip over. “
Bob Goff
For some reason this quote suggests all sorts of wonderful, mostly amusing, images. We all know what happens if we stand up in a kayak, or a very tippy boat, for example. We tip over! For me, for some strange reason, the image is of the opposite. I am reminded of those crazy children’s toys, rounded and weighted on the bottom, so that even when you push them over, they pop right back up. No matter how hard you try to tip them over, they right themselves immediately.
So, what kinds of things fill up our minds and cause us to tip over? Busyness and long, involved to-do lists for starters. Then there are all those judgments, prejudices, and preconceived ideas about the way the world and other people should be and act, not to mention a whole host of things like knowing all the answers, wanting to be in control and needing to be right. All those things that make us top-heavy and can cause us to tip over when things don’t go according to our best laid plans.
A full heart, however, a heart that is open, vulnerable and in a posture of surrender, is a very different matter. Such is the heart that is filled with compassion, peacefulness, joy, forgiveness, and all those qualities that lead to building up the kingdom of God. A person whose heart is filled in this way, just like those toys, can be pushed over by any of the storms of life and bounce back up, because that person is grounded, weighted, in God and Gods love for them.
What image does Goff’s quote suggest for you? Is your mind so full that you risk tipping over or is your heart sufficiently full that it keeps you grounded no matter what happens? A little something to ponder as we enter into Holy Week when Jesus, his heart filled with love, found sustenance in a way we cannot even begin to imagine.
Blessings, Cynthia.