Beating Hearts...

In school right now, we are currently going over the cardiovascular system (heart and circulation). Well literally I’m in ethics right now, but it’s 8am and this lecture is kind of a joke; but in our sciences we’re going over the heart. We’re learning about how blood gets pumped from the middle of your chest, all the way to your fingers, toes, and brain, and how it comes back to the heart to do it all over again. We are learning about how the heart has its own conduction system built into it. It’s truly fascinating. I won’t bore you with anatomy (although I’d like to), so I’ll get to my point.

Everybody has a heart. It’s living, beating, and gives life to people. Regardless if someone is kind, rude, happy, or angry, they still have a heart. I had this crazy picture pop into my head this week in class, and it’s this: I imagined looking at an x-ray of everyone in the room, and I was able to see their heart beating. I know it doesn’t sound all that epic, but it was to me. It allowed me to see everyone as equal; we’re all in the same boat. Is someone less important because they don’t do something, have something, or is different than someone else? Does not everyone have the same inner parts, which makes us all human? Is not everyone born into the same world, and eventually dies in the same world? Yes, some people die with more Legos than others, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Jesus tells us the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. The dictionary defines neighbor as, “a person or place in relation to others near or next to.” So Jesus tells us to love the people near to us and next to us. He doesn’t tell us to love people because they’re nice to me, or to love people who make me feel good. He tells us to love without discrimination. He tells us to accept people as they are, without judgment or expectations.

So I’m now trying to see everybody in this way. I’m learning to love without strings attached. I feel like going up to people and telling them, “I accept you for who you are, even if you’re totally different than me!!” But that’s just weird, and I don’t want people to think I’m a freak. I think I’ll just tell them that by showing it to them. Hopefully they pick up on it.

Class is over. This was short but that’s all I had to say J