Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Virginia H. Pearce’s new book, A Heart Like His. See Catherine K. Arveseth’s review of this book by clicking here.
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,-
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away
On either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat-the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
Edna St. Vincent Millay “Renascence” [1912] last lines
“Well, I baked some cinnamon rolls, and then I just tried to think of someone who wouldn’t expect a visit from me.” She giggled self-consciously and rubbed the thumb of her right hand back and forth on the wooden arm of the rocker as she tentatively continued. “I was just about sick I was so nervous, but it helped to think about people up and down the street and then about my heart.” Ellen concentrated on the card in her hand. It was filled with small, perfectly penciled notes. “I kept thinking about making my heart soft and enlarged and available-like we talked about last month. Maybe that’s why I thought of making cinnamon rolls-you know, a warm, squishy heart?”
The other seven of us rippled an encouraging response to her humor, and Pauline fairly beamed approval at Ellen from across the living room.
She’s darling, but that’s not exactly fair, I thought from my chair on the other side of the fireplace. We weren’t supposed to do anything special, like bake rolls or make extra visits. I didn’t say anything, though, because I didn’t want the floor, and more than that I was mesmerized by the quiet charm of Ellen’s voice as she became more and more animated.
When my friend recommended that I invite Ellen to serve on this Relief Society committee, she had described Ellen as “understated.” I answered that there were plenty of overstated people in the world and that I would welcome an understated model. So I was more than a bit surprised that Ellen would have the confidence to lead out the way she was doing that night. Understated, yes, but lacking confidence? Maybe not.
Ellen continued, “I took some rolls to the Vincents and then went to see a couple of quiet, elderly ladies who don’t get out to church. They were surprised to see me.” Ellen actually twinkled, as if she had pulled off a shoemaker-and-the-elves stunt.
“And then I went to see Mina, a friend from Eastern Europe. I don’t keep in touch with her as much as I should.” Ellen finally stopped rubbing the satiny wood with her thumb, and she placed the card in her lap. Then, lacing the fingers of both hands together, she leaned forward and drew us into the story of a woman coming to a foreign land with three small children and a handsome husband. But within a short time their world of opportunity was suddenly shattered by her husband’s early death.
Ellen said, “I’m sure that nothing was ever the same again for Mina. But she’s overcome so much. When you think that she learned a new language, managed to make a living with very little education or training, learned to drive, and did all that it takes to rear children, it’s unbelievable. But, you can imagine that everything’s been hard for her. You just feel it. Because of the language, she often misunderstands people’s motives and imagines ill will. Even with that, she’s friendly and willing to make herself part of things. The children are all adults now and doing well, but I sometimes wonder if you ever lose the feeling of being isolated when you grow old in a foreign country. But how would I know!”
Ellen’s hands went back on the arms of the rocker as she sat up straight. “Yes, when I was making the cinnamon rolls, I had a feeling that I wanted to take some to her.”
Almost startled by her own confidence, Ellen glanced around our circle. “None of you know me very well, but you probably guessed that when I showed up at the stockroom in the preexistence, there must have been a back order on being big and bold, so in this life I’m short and quiet.”
Ellen dropped her voice into a confessional tone, “I’ve always wondered if there really is a spot for short, quiet people. The rest of you always seem to have more fun. But, really, when I was rolling out the dough and thinking about those people, I must admit I was pretty close to having fun. I just put my shoulders back like we talked about, so that my heart could have more room, and I even said out loud: I’ll just go do it!'” Ellen stopped and looked up, waiting for a response, but no one said anything. Our silence coaxed her on.
“But guess what?” she resumed. “Even though it was scary to knock on the doors, every single person was happy to see me. The best one though was Mina. The weather had been stormy, and she told me that she was sick and had been indoors for days. She couldn’t believe that someone had thought about her.”
Ellen looked up and past the tops of our heads. For just a moment it was as if we had disappeared and she were alone in the room as the evening darkness began to sneak in through the windows. We held our breath until she started talking again, almost to herself. “I’m so glad it was me,” she said quietly. “I don’t care about being big and bold anymore. I just want to change my heart, and I think it’s starting to happen.”
The committee meeting lasted for about two hours that night. Years afterward the eight women gathered wouldn’t be able to remember exactly what was said by whom or in what order, but most of us would echo Ellen’s feeling: “I wanted to change my heart, and I think it started to happen that night.”
The meeting had grown out of a church calling, where I, along with several women, found myself on a Relief Society committee organized to help women in our stake feel the love of the Lord in their lives more deeply and on a more frequent basis.
We planned to use our stake women’s conference as at least one of the places where we could do this. As members of the committee, we felt that we could move forward in our assignment if we first learned better for ourselves what it means to live more consistently with softened, more open hearts; hearts that are more available to God and to others-souls that were less flat. And so we decided to put all of the other usual tasks, such as designing invitations, making decorations, preparing refreshments, deciding on speakers, and the like, temporarily aside and experiment personally with the principles we hoped to teach at the conference.
We knew that when we felt loved by the Lord, we automatically treated other people more lovingly, but we wondered if we could perhaps do more to initiate a change in the condition of our own hearts that would then result in our feeling an added measure of love from the Lord and in turn help others feel His love. And the circle could continue. We all wondered, could this be an accurate hypothesis? Could we actually alter the condition of our own hearts in a way that would make it possible to “split the sky in two, and let the face of God shine through”? Why not devise an experiment?
All eight of us were eager to begin but also a bit cautious. We each had busy lives and a history of failed programs and resolves. We were wary of making a list-no matter how small-of more things to do. We wondered, really wondered, if our hypothesis could be verified. Would simply opening our hearts to others also invite Him into our hearts? In the past we felt we had prayed for His love to fill our hearts, then we turned toward others with a softened heart. This would be starting at the other end, if you will. We didn’t know what would happen, but this was to be an experiment. So we went forward, feeling that we had nothing to lose and perhaps a great deal to learn.
We were experimenting with principles, in the tradition of Alma. As we opened our hearts in love, we wondered if the seeds would in fact swell and begin to enlarge our souls, or if they would just shrivel up and blow away on a breeze.
As a committee, we outlined a plan: to simply be more aware of the condition of our hearts, and with this awareness, crack them open a bit wider. We agreed to do this during encounters that would present themselves in the natural flow of our lives. Then we would honestly report what had occurred. Those were the rules of the experiment-the only rules. The eight of us thought it seemed quite easy, and our expectations were modest. We got out our little planners and agreed on a Thursday evening in May, when we would gather again and report what, if anything, had happened.
As you might expect, the month passed ever so swiftly, and there we were on a warm spring evening in a circle of chairs in my living room, where Ellen was to be the first to describe her experience. We went over the purpose of the experiment: our desire to open our hearts to others in the hopes that they could feel the love of the Lord more fully in their lives. We reiterated the rules of what we were now calling our “Awareness Experiment”:
1. To be more aware of the condition of our hearts and with that awareness to keep them more open toward others.
2. To do this in the normal course of our lives, in other words, not put any extra activities into our day-no extra visits, no preparing of casseroles, etc. Above all, people were not to become “projects,” and our lives were not to be filled with more things to do!
3. Notice the Spirit, and be willing to come together and honestly report what happened or hadn’t happened.
Well, going back to that evening in May, we gathered. The time for honestly reporting had arrived, and only Ellen was initially prepared to break the silence. Only Ellen with her neatly written 3×5 card felt that she had participated in the experiment, that she had “done it right.” The rest of us were mumbling about how fast time had flown.
However, after Ellen finished her report, the rest of us hesitantly began to reach back into our memories of the past weeks for those moments that might have seemed quite small at the time, but as we sat together were beginning to seem more significant.
“I forgot about it until now, but there was this one morning,” I recalled, wondering if what I was about to say would sound stupid. “I was doing the usual-long list, telephone, other things, I don’t know-and my doorbell rang. It was Ann, a neighbor whom I visit teach. Except for an occasional wave as we come and go in the neighborhood, she’s someone I usually see only when I do my monthly visiting. She had stopped by because someone dropped off something for me at her work, knowing that she lived near me and could conveniently return it. I opened the door to take it from her and thank her, and just as I was about to say Have a great day!’ and wave her on, I thought about our experiment and about my little closed heart.
“Bingo! Open it up, Virginia! So, almost instantaneously, I heard myself say, Have you got a minute to come in?’ This is hard to believe, because I always think that everyone else is in a hurry (like me) and that I shouldn’t impose. But, much to my surprise, she said, Sure,’ and came right in. We sat down in the living room and chatted away. We ended up laughing and talking comfortably for a few minutes, and then she went on her way.”
As I continued talking, I lost my hesitancy. Yes, this was important, not stupid. I stopped, thought of my friend Ann and our conversation, warming to the memory. “Maybe I’m making too much out of this, but I have a feeling that everything is just a little different for the two of us now. We’re friends-even, balanced friends. I mean, I called her later that day for a telephone number. I’d never done that before. I’m no longer just her visiting teacher who goes to her living room. She’s been in my house. We’re regular friends. It’s an open-heart thing.” I thought back, irritated with myself, and said, “Me and my schedule and thinking that everyone is punching a time clock! I’ve got to be tuned into this schedule thing. It’s definitely a red flag for me. It’s a warning that my heart is shutting down.”
Now I was really on my soapbox and probably talking a little too loudly. “After all,” I continued with disgust, “I wasn’t fifteen minutes more behind at the end of the day than I would have been otherwise, and I’ll bet she wasn’t, either. Actually it turned out to be one of the brightest spots of my week!”
I felt, more than heard, the circle of friends congratulating me. Actually, there was a bit of silence as we all looked around for someone else to report.
Barbara hesitated. Reaching for a strand of her straight blond hair, she tucked it behind her ear and said, a little tentatively, “Well, I was out-of-town quite a bit. Does it count if my open-heart’ conversation was with someone on the plane, not someone in the stake?” We all started to laugh-along with Barbara. Yes, this experiment had grown out of a Relief Society committee, but how absurd that we would think that any good thing we do should be limited to boundary lines, whether they be geographic or religious or otherwise!
We would talk about this a great deal in the coming months as we began to understand more and more that we were experiencing a change in our own hearts; becoming different within ourselves, not doing something to someone else. Obviously, if we are becoming new creatures we will be consistently practicing-whenever, wherever. If having an open heart is just a matter of doing, we can turn it off and on like a switch-be a good mother, an irritable coworker, a good gospel doctrine teacher, a withholding daughter-in-law, and so on.
Barbara took heart from our laughter and began to describe an experience she had had with a seatmate on the plane. At first they just exchanged pleasantries, but before Barbara knew it, the woman was talking about the conflict she was feeling-between managing her career and nurturing her family. Barbara said to us, “I instinctively knew that I shouldn’t give advice. My only job was just to keep praying and thinking about my heart-is it open, nonjudgmental, loving, accepting? It was quite easy. I just listened and responded from my heart, and this lovely woman talked and talked.
“By the time we landed, we really cared about each other. She said, Thanks for letting me talk. I guess I didn’t realize until I went on and on how much I care about my family. They really are more important to me than my job. I know what I’m going to do. Thanks for helping me figure it out.’ Wow. Usually I get on a plane feeling grungy because I’m so tired. I’m telling you, I walked off the plane feeling better than if I’d slept all the way!”
No silence this time. We all turned, as if with one head, to the next person. It was Pauline, and she willingly shared something she had done. She told about going to the gym to work out a couple of weeks before.
“As I walked in with my daughters, a woman greeted me enthusiastically-as though she really knew me. Hi, Pauline!’ Panic. The face didn’t look remotely familiar. I couldn’t pull up a name or even a context. But, just as I was ready to fake a friendly response and go to the other side of the workout room, I thought of our experiment and paid attention to my heart. It was all shriveled up-moving to the back of my chest-protected, hard, and cold. I quickly talked to myself, Wait a minute, Pauline! This is your chance to experiment! So I said, I’m sorry. I can’t place you. Tell me your name.'”
The door flew open to what Pauline called the most wonderful hour of conversation. “We moved to exercise machines next to each other, and my friend from kindergarten, whom I had not seen since high school, ended up telling me her life story. It had been a tough one. We cried together as she described about what she had gone through, but the real tears came when she told me that she had been rebaptized that very week and was anticipating a new and good life ahead of her.
My heart at the end of the hour was a different heart. It was the heart we’ve talked about so much; softened, opened, filled with His love, reaching out, nonjudgmental, positive, kind, affirming.
“After we finished exercising, I introduced her to my girls. It was as if I were introducing a long-lost loved one. And I guess that’s really what she is. I know I don’t love her like the Lord does, but there really was some of that in there.” Then Pauline paused and said more quietly, “I can’t believe I almost missed the whole experience because I habitually keep my heart closed up and move on when I don’t recognize someone. I guess it’s pride. It’s such a stupid thing. And guess what? It didn’t take any extra time out of my day!” Pauline raised one closed-fisted arm in a triumphal salute. “Life is good!”
And so it went around the circle. Two hours flew by. Everyone had at least one simple story to tell. We had come into the room thinking that we really hadn’t done very well, but as we listened to one another and reflected on our moments of awareness, when we had consciously opened our hearts, our enthusiasm literally exploded. Even as we sat together we felt our hearts changing in profound ways. The world around us suddenly seemed new. We began to feel directly His love for us, and we were surprised at how energizing it was to help others feel God’s love for them because of the way we thought about them and treated them.
As we tried to describe what we were learning, we began to laugh. This wasn’t as revolutionary as we thought. It was pretty basic stuff-Christianity 101, if you please! Why did it seem so effortless and brand new? And it took virtually no extra time. Except of course, for Ellen, the understated overachiever, who insisted that making several batches of cinnamon rolls was part of the “natural flow of her life!” Perhaps we had spent a lot of time in our lives going about “doing” good rather than letting the Lord help us “become” good in our hearts. We loved it and couldn’t quit talking about it and our desire to change even more.
This little book, then, becomes an explanation of our committee’s journey and a personal invitation from me to you, my reader friend, to join us in opening your heart just a crack wider now and then. Because of our shared experiences, I really am convinced that having an open heart does “split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.” I hope that the simplicity of our experiment won’t insult you, that you will think it inviting to consider your own heart. Perhaps my friends and I are the only ones on the planet who were making life harder than it really is, but maybe, just maybe, it’s harder for you than it needs to be also!
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Think of the women in this chapter and their stories. Were you particularly drawn to any of them? Which one? Why? As you consider opening your own heart, what stumbling blocks might you anticipate?
Find one or more friends who might like to work with you, people with whom you feel comfortable who will want to talk back and forth as you all experiment with, redefine, and add to the concepts in this book.
