At the Heart of It: Do I have a heart?

Do I have a heart? What kind of heart do I have?

I copied down from a concordance all of the biblical references to the word 'heart.' I'm going to chew on these for a while. There are a lot of them. Today I am looking at Exodus 23:9.

Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.

At first I thought this didn't apply to the term 'heart.' But, really it does. When I feel with my heart I see from where I came and I understand that everyone desires the same things, like safety and security. Everyone wants to be accepted, connected, loved. When I treat everyone the same ... Caucasian, African-American, Chinese, Hispanic are mostly our population that I am aware of ... I have a happy heart. I feel good, not because I have been kind to someone but because I want them to treat me with acceptance and respect, too. I am desirous of a united community that has common ground.

It stings when I am in a store and someone different than me snubs me. It's like they have made themselves at home in my house but they want to take it from me. I want to be hospitable, but how can I with an enemy who would slit my throat and take what I have WORKED for?

Nobody has given my husband and me anything. We have WORKED to earn it. Nothing we have was an ENTITLEMENT. It was not given to us. Sometimes we have paid a high price, not dollars and cents necessarily, to get what we have. In fact, there have been times when we were denied food stamps. All I wanted was food stamps to feed my children. And I was turned away. We have always paid taxes to support those programs, but I was turned away in our hours of need!

Do I have a heart? Yes. What kind of heart do I have? I have a generous heart, but I also matter. Your rights stop where my rights begin. But all well behaved children are taught to share.

(c) 2014 Cathy Brownfield. All Rights Reserved.
For permission to reprint, contact the author.