A Good Heart

Happy Day 56

I read this book in the spring, before it was announced the 2014 Pulitizer Prize winner. I have been thinking about it today and grateful I know that no matter the state of mind or heart, we always have agency. We can choose a good heart-placing God, faith and family above one's self. I'm grateful for good choices, even when they have been hard. 

I'm grateful for covenants and promises kept. I'm grateful for self-control and respect. I'm grateful for truth and the blessing of an eternal perspective. I'm grateful not to be tossed to and fro on the winds of worldly self-indulgence. At the same time, I'm so sad for those who willfully cast themselves into the fire. 

"Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?"

     Donna Tartt