“Only time and grace can put the essence of these stories in your heart. Here we recite and learn them and put them on our hearts hoping that someday when our heart breaks they will fall in.”

The following came from a Facebook post. I can't vouch for the text, but I appreciate its spirituality.

A great rabbi taught his disciples to memorize and contemplate the teachings and to place the payers and holy words on their hearts. One day a student asked the rabbi why he always used the phrase “on your heart” and not “in your heart.” The master replied “Only time and grace can put the essence of these stories in your heart. Here we recite and learn them and put them on our hearts hoping that someday when our heart breaks they will fall in.”
Jack Kornfield, A Lamp in the Darkness
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My heart is broken
As I hear the stories of the parents, and the doctors
And hear the stories of the little children from Uvalde
My heart is broken
As I read of 10-year-old bodies torn apart
Until even their parents couldn’t recognize them
My heart is broken
As I think of my granddaughter
Also 10, my heart breaks again.
As I think of those parents and grandparents who will never again
Welcome those children home
My heart breaks again.
My heart is broken
Each day as the news brings word
Of another shooting
More death
More grief
It is not just guns
My heart is broken by injustice
And by a badly damaged planet
And by the oppression and minimization of women
And by the demonization of people whom God created LGBTQI+
And by voter suppression
The ills of the world seem overwhelming
and they press on my heart
and they fall in
into the deep place
that sacred place
where they are greeted
and transformed
and sometimes healed
by the Christ in me
the pain is transformed into compassion
the anger into action
the hate into (I hope) understanding
but I do not understand
those whose hearts have been so hardened
that little seems to get in
what makes for a hard heart?
A lust for power?
Greed?
A selfishness that cannot look past
Individual benefits and rights?
I do not understand how those who
gush over the rights of a cluster of cells
can look upon the decapitated body of a 10-year-old
and vote to allow the weapon that did such damage
to circulate freely
Jesus once taught us the way we should be (the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke)
What a blessed life looks like
It looks like vulnerability (poor in Spirit)
Like the ability to mourn
It looks like humility
It looks like a fierce commitment to justice
It looks like compassion and forgiveness.
It looks like authenticity and integrity
It looks like peacemaking (not violence)
It looks like a willingness to do what is RIGHT no matter the cost.
Even when it costs you votes and you get attacked on Facebook
That is what a soft heart looks like
An open heart
A hard heart?
It looks like self-focus
Like detachment
It looks like arrogance
It looks like injustice
It looks like ignoring the pain of others (since it is not your pain)
It looks like accepting lies as truth
It looks like violence
It looks like a willingness to do anything to get and keep power
It looks like choosing dominance over service
Accumulation over generosity
Retribution over forgiveness
Guns over children
I have to admit
I am angry at those representatives who voted against gun control
I am going to be angry at those Senators who will vote against gun control
I am going to find it hard to forgive them
I am going to rage at their thoughts and prayers
Which are not backed by meaningful action
And I am going to hope
That someday
Their hearts too will break
And love, and compassion, and truth
And justice

Will fall in