What is it that moves the hearts of men?
Is it the promise of riches? Is it the fear of death? Suffering, maybe.
Or is it the call of the infinite? That voice within that speaks to us in our life’s deepest moments? But even then, what is it that makes those moments so deep?
Love might be the obvious answer for many. But what then is love?
I’ve wrestled with this question for quite some time. And it’s all too easy to settle for an answer that makes for a beautiful quote over an ocean sunset, but fails to contend with the deeper mystery lying in wait.
For it’s many things that will provoke a man towards action, but few by way of his heart.
I’ve heard it said before that the mind thinks, but the heart knows. A kind of saying that seems true by virtue of experience. The number of times we would convince our heart to feel another way, if only it were it a matter of reasoning with it.
And herein lies something fundamental to the question entirely, a problem largely unaddressed by those too trusting in their own intellect.
A Mystery
It’s not exactly clear to what degree the matters of the heart are even up to our own doing, or choosing. It seems more likely that we may enter into a kind of relationship with our heart, one that is co-defining and transformative.
But to pretend as though the feelings of the heart are entirely a matter of our own will and reason, is benign.
And I think it’s something we must contend with—that our deepest convictions often arise from the place of our least understanding, let alone governance. That at the center of our most cherished insistences, lies a spirit that we may barter with, but bear no hope of ever owning.
And not for lack of tyranny on our part, but in that the heart can never be owned—by anyone. The least of which being ourselves.
For while the master may rule with the whip and the iron fist, no slave is prisoner whose heart beats with the sound of freedom.
We may enslave ourselves to do the bidding of whatever will befalls us. We may labour to silence that within us which we cannot control. But hasn’t the heart always said more in silence?
A Chance
I ask you today, is your heart in chains? Do you seek also to tame the only thing that would bring meaning to the bleak and desolate landscape of your self-absorbing intellect?
Would you sacrifice that which you hold to be most true—most sacred, in the face of all that you deem more convenient?
You will never live a life so vast, and yet so empty.
Self-preservation may be at the forefront of your mind, but in the depths of your being you know that there must be more than you.
What is it that moves the hearts of men? Perhaps that’s the wrong question.
What is it that moves you?
Will it be the wealth of your understanding, your ego—the godhead you’ve made of your own intellect? Or will it be the only piece of you that was never yours to begin with?
A lowly servant. But a servant of the most-high.
In this life, you can choose to be God and King…but to what end? In the height of your reign you will come to the end of yourself. And you will come to face the end alone.
But if you lay down your crown today, you may see before the end that there was always more than you. And to be king is not to rule at the expense of all else.
To be king is to serve all else, to its highest good, even at the expense of yourself.
We call that love, indeed.
And love would have that there be more to this world than all the things this world can offer you.
Offer yourself up to the world. Make contact with something deep today—something beautiful. Something that couldn’t be you. Something that must be more than you. Something that will always be more than you. Or you’re going to miss it.
Not the opportunity of your life.
But the opportunity that is your life.
I wish you the very best,
David Kennedy