Chimes of the Heart

....a few thoughts this week, random chimes of my heart.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Anna Karenina.  

Health is singular, but a man can be sick in a million different ways.  

There is but one way to be truly human, Christ alone. There is a million different ways to be devilish. 

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.  1 Samuel 16:7

I stood at my coffee pot, pouring a cup after a sleepless night, and I prayed 1 Samuel 16:7.  I thanked God that he takes care of my heart.  He is not obsessed with outward appearances, as I am.  He has my heart.  He is instructing my heart.  

"Everyone comes to the Liturgy with something different they want to pray about.  Everyone participates in their own way, " my Spiritual Father.  A challenge to come even when full participation is impossible.  A mother in Liturgy participates in the way she can.  

And finally...a favorite from Shakespeare.  This Sonnet speaks to me about the pain of unreasonable desire. Sin is always unreasonable.

SONNET 147

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.