Heart of Flesh, Heart of Stone

Today’s reading is from Ezekiel 11:14-25 

I have a firm belief that you can find God everywhere.

Everywhere.

And you should see that in these reflections I write, mostly because every week, I seem to include something I have learned from the garbage truck.

I feel like the garbage truck driver and I have been at war since the week I moved in.  It was that week that he drove so close to my house down the alley that he clipped the cable wire from my house and sent it whipping out into the street, like an angry snake that had been sleeping and now found itself dangling and stuck from a high place.  Not completely sure it was the cable wire, I had to call 911 so that the firemen could check to see if it was a livewire and then move it from the street.

It was my welcome to the neighborhood.

In defense of the garbagemen, my house is a new house and before it was built, the land was a vacant, overgrown, forlorn lot and so they saw no problem with driving over the grass to help them get a better angle when they turned from the alley onto the street.

I get it.  Old habits.

I still get confused birds clunking into my windows because they too are not quite used to a building being here.

Every week, though, I wait to see how much of my lawn, the garbage truck will claim.  It was a little dicey this winter when snow covered the alley.  It was then the truck almost took out my Little Free Library which stands about ten feet from the actual alley.

Since spring began, I have been trying to reclaim my property.  There is a six foot wide strip of dirt and rocks between the grass and the alley and that strip of barren earth is actually mine, but as long as it remains dirt and rocks, the garbage truck will continue to drive over it.  And slowly, my property will erode, disappearing a little bit more with each tire rut and subsequent rain storm. 

I have tried planting the world’s tiniest boxwood and then seeding the dirt with grass and straw, but still I hold my breath each garbage day. 

The other morning as I was out walking, I discovered I was not the only property owner battling the garbage truck.

You see each block in the neighborhood has an alleyway bisecting it.  And it is in this alleyway that people put out their trashcans for collection.

The other day, I noticed the alleyway one block over was having the same issue with the garbage truck.  There were deep tire ruts, massive earth gouges, where the truck exited the alley.  The property owner affected had tried something that I had considered, namely putting up some found, flat rocks as a makeshift retaining wall.

It did not appear to be working.

But then, a few days later, they tried something different, this time erecting a DIY concrete block (complete with concrete) wall at the edge of the property.  It was a hideous looking wall. 

The Japanese have an art called Kintsugi where broken pottery is mended with gold, highlighting the cracks, rather than hiding them and creating something beautiful in the process.

This concrete wall, thrown into the existing cracks in the earth, was not beautiful.  It was awful.  It was sloppy.  It wasn’t level.  It looked like a Kindergartener had put it together with no tools but their fingers.

It had a sharp ninety-degree angle to it.  It was a wall that sent a message.  Cut this corner at your own risk.  The next day, they added some yellow spray paint to one end because apparently they weren’t monsters—they didn’t want the garbage truck, or any other vehicle to hit it, they just wanted the wall as a warning.

I couldn’t help but think about the differences in their approach and my approach to the same problem.

And that made me think about today’s reading from Ezekiel.  Specifically, Ezekiel 11:19 which reads, “I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.” 

It’s one of those poetic verses that I feel comfortable taking on its own without context.

Because I believe building a concrete wall is a “heart of stone” approach, while planting seed and other living things is a “heart of flesh” approach.

And let me explain why with as little judgement against my neighbor down the block as possible.

My neighbor built a concrete wall hoping that the garbage truck driver would value the property he, himself, is responsible for—namely his truck.  My neighbor is appealing to the driver’s self-centeredness.  He is assuming the driver may not care about others, but will care about himself.

I planted grass and a boxwood.  The garbage truck driver is not responsible for what I have planted.  He has no stake in my plant-life.  I am appealing to his empathy.  I am praying that he sees something beautiful and decides to do what he can NOT to kill it.  I am hoping he is looking outside of himself and sees value in things that don’t belong to him.

Now let’s be realistic here.  If you ran this experiment a hundred times, I am guessing the concrete wall keeps the garbage truck driver away from my neighbor’s property every time.

Whereas in my situation, I am guessing, you might see a 50% success rate.

So why not build the concrete wall?

Because having a “heart of flesh” means sowing love into the world even if it makes us vulnerable in the process. 

Because walls send one message and living things send another.

Love begets love.

And life begets life.

And walls do nothing but divide.

No living thing will grow where the wall is.

Having a “heart of flesh” is not supposed to be easy.  As I said, having a “heart of flesh” makes us vulnerable.  It is unconditional love in its purest form.

You will be called naïve.  People will listen to your story and roll their eyes and shake their heads.  People will pity you.

And you will sometimes wonder if they are right.

A few days ago, out on my walk, I discovered one of the brand-new picture books I had placed in the Little Free Library on the sidewalk, around the block from my house.  There were ripped pages littering the ground.  The book looked like it had been attacked.  I found the cover in someone’s yard further up the street.

It was heartbreaking to me because picture books are not cheap, they are luxury books for anyone, but with their art and their poetry, I think they are the most valuable books, regardless of monetary value. 

I picked up the book and cover and carried it with me on my walk.

When I got home, I set it outside on my patio table and then went to think about things for a bit.

The book was not salvageable.  It wound up in the trash.

It was disappointing to see a book treated that way, but that won’t stop me from putting books in the Little Free Library.  It won’t stop me from investing in my neighborhood.  It won’t stop me from sowing love—from sowing unconditional love.

It takes a lot of spiritual fortitude to have a “heart of flesh,” but love cannot grow in a “heart of stone.”

In the meantime, I have more plans for that alley corner and the strip of grass that one might generously call a side yard that runs the length of my house on that alley, plans for life and for beauty.

Amen.