The seeing of hearts

Wars are not just waged on national and international scales.  They’re waged first and foremost in hearts — yours and mine.  

In a cosmic reversal of fortunes, we only make peace with our own heart when we’ve agreed to be at peace regarding the hearts of others — over whom we have almost no influence, let alone control.  

We only experience peace in a chaotic world
when we understand and accept the chaos.  

The seeing of hearts — others hearts — is a gift not principally to them, but to us, because it relieves us of the caustic load of bias against them who we hardly understand.  

Seeing people right — through eyes of truth — is crucial to discerning and not condemning.  This is about giving others the benefit of the doubt that we would like to receive from them.  

The trickiest thing about hearts is how secretly divisive and biased they are.  About the only time we’re ready to admit this is when we’re caught in a sin — when our heart has been revealed to us at least as ‘a little corrupt’.  

Facing this truth is key to any objective we have on humility.  

The seeing of hearts is empathy of compassion, seeing and accepting the moral limits on others, even as we understand and accept our own moral limits.  

Seeing hearts means we aren’t shocked when others aren’t “for” us, as we admit the light-speed at which we’re prone to turn “against” others.  

Love can be highly conditional
unless it’s a deliberate choice
to see others as God sees them.  

Seeing hearts is about comprehending we’re not a lot different from one another as human beings — we have our perceptions and we respond accordingly.  

Seeing hearts correctly is not hard when we’re open to the truth in our own heart.  

We want our plans to succeed, we want life predictable and easy, we don’t appreciate surprises and we hate loss, and we want what we think we deserve.  

Unfortunately, life’s not like that.  Not for any of us.  Though there are times when it’s especially rough for us.  Perhaps this coincides with times that seem favourable to another person we’d compare with.  Life feels particularly unfair.  We don’t reckon with the ‘swings and roundabouts’ of life.  We want the disparity rectified immediately.  

The seeing of hearts helps at these times, for we empathise with ourselves and are prone more to patience amid the apparent misfortune.  

When life is good for us but there’s another person suffering, seeing their heart helps us stay in the “mourn with those who mourn” state.  This helps them via our compassion — as we ‘suffer with’ them — and it helps our own heart as we’re blessed in being a blessing.  

In another cosmic reversal, as we see others’ hearts, empathising with them, we do so out of the seeing of our own heart.  

Recognising the vagaries and partialities of our own hearts helps us understand and accept the vagaries and partialities of others — these are human constants that are easy to see if only we will take the time.  

Seeing hearts is the way to peace
in a life that cannot be separated from others.  

In life, inner peace is linked to peace with others.  

As life is relational, so is peace.  

Peace with self is contingent on peace with others.