Jesus: Cardiologist

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."  

For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come...

- Mark 7:14-15, 21

you are all about heart work

a cardiologist of the soul

and so much less about gut work you say

it’s not the outside coming in

and the digestion and the excrement

it’s the inner life, the heart’s desires

the mind’s formation, the mouth’s utterances

that you came to expose and name

and reshape into something life-giving

and not life-diminishing which seems to be our way

before we suffer arrest and infarction

you have come to clean out our arteries

infuse us with your Lipitor grace

clarify us with your angioplastic mercy

prop us open with your stents of truth telling

letting the warmth of blood flow freely again

so every lub dub beating of our new hearts

can oxygenate our own active mercy

and shape our vocal chords for words of lovingkindness

and fill every corpuscle with hope

that the rhythmic drumming of our lives can sync

and syncopate with the cosmic cardiac pulse of God