Pure in Heart
A Journey of Transformation
I’m listening to the radio when this song comes on. The lyric in the chorus catches my attention.
If I traded it all
If I gave it all away
For one thing
Wouldn’t that be something
My heart resonates with the singleminded intention. It reminds me of the focus of pursuit that great artists and athletes endure to reach the heights of their craft. It reflects the discipline I’ve seen in people of integrity – even successful people in business and life. As an improvisational tap dancer, a lot of my time is spent discovering possible choices, and then training for the selection of the choices that I would be happy with. For any given piece of music, a tap dancer could dance through it in a near infinite number of ways. Yet, in any given performance of a particular piece, the dancer gets to say yes to one way. A single set of choices. One choice per moment. One yes, so many no’s. There is a loss of all the other possibilities. For everything we say yes to, there are a multitude of no’s that are implicit in the choice.
In this journey of transformation, one of the parts of who we are that gets formed is our wanter. It carries different names depending on the writing that we read. It could be described as the heart, will, or spirit, but it is essentially the same part of the person. It is the part that energizes the direction we want to go into action. For example, we may think mercy is good to give. We may even have good feelings toward experiences of giving and receiving mercy. Yet, unless our will is conformed to desire the giving of mercy – above and beyond the many other options we may have – our ability to give mercy will feel sporadic at best. While we will have thoughts and feelings towards being merciful, we will not have energy towards being merciful. We will not want it. Without the desire and the energy that comes with it, the habits of our body – what it normally does (and this includes words) – will be the path upon which we remain.
Our wanter must be transformed in order for us to live in a new way – for us to be transformed. With this, a question arises. To what degree must our wanter be transformed?
In a world in which a hard life was a consistent reality; where desires for freedom came along with talk of revolution, the overthrow of oppressors; and where the religious elite operated in such a way that put stumbling blocks in the path of the people they were meant to serve, Jesus said these words:
Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
The idea of purity has many contexts in which it shows up, and by extension, a number of related definitions. So let’s consider how it might be used here. The position of the person identified is someone who’s will is pure. That is, it is free from admixture with, or adhesion to, anything that soils, adulterates, or corrupts. Nothing is mixed with it, or attached to it, that could confuse it, or turn it towards evil. As a vine that has been pruned, a pure will is free from corrupt desires and from the evil actions and guilt that can ensnare one’s person to those corrupt desires. A pure will is sincere and genuine, innocent and blameless. Take a moment to think of a person in your life who is like this – even in part. What comes up if we consider our own hearts here?
This beatitude makes clear the notion of good and evil. The idea of a pure heart cannot exist in a world in which good or evil are undefined or relative. For purity and corruption to exist, then good and evil must also exist. Then good and evil actions, intentions, and desires also exist. They exist in every person, even you and me. The journey of transformation that we’ve been exploring here is predicated on the fact that the kind of inner transformation that Jesus proposes is actually possible. While we are found to be mixed trees with both good and evil in us, we can become good trees that by nature can only bear good fruit. Whatever evil desires are within us – that fuel evil intentions and manifest in evil actions – can actually change. It is not surprising then that Jesus lands here, describing a person who’s heart is pure.
I can hear the people now. “That’s impossible. No one can be pure in heart.” That statement in and of itself precludes the possibility. We settle for good enough. God fills in the gap between who we are and the perfection of Jesus with his grace. And God definitely does. But there is another way of thinking that opens the possibility of actually becoming a person who is pure in heart. That is in asking the question, “What if?”
What if it was possible for someone to be pure in heart? What kind of journey would they be on? I suspect that they would need to have a clear vision of reality (God) and their position in it (poverty). They would be familiar with loss, even the loss of their own self-image, and the process of mourning such things. On account of their experience with mourning, they would have developed a way of relating with others and the world around them that is different than most (meekness). Having journeyed this far with God, they would have wrestled through their desire to make the rest of the world right, and turned to God to fill that hunger and thirst. They would then have endeavored to show mercy, and in turn experienced the wonderful intimate mercy of God. At this point in the journey all they might want is to be with God. After going through all that they have gone through, and experiencing God in such tangible and intimate ways, who would want anything else?
This, too, may feel like settling. After all, there are so many other things the vie for our attention. Not just distractions, the realities of responsibilities to family, work, and bills for example all battle for our focus. There are so many other things that we have been told are good – that we should want. But there is a kind of shift that happens in the journey of transformation. It is a shift from desiring external representations of goodness (things, accomplishments, even associations and relationships), to desiring being a good person. Even further, the shift continues from desiring being a good person, to desiring the way that can make us good. In the propositions of Jesus, it is the following of Jesus – entrusting ourselves to him – that is the way. It is in the experience of the way that we experience the truth of God (who the father is), so intimately. It is in the experience of God – even the indwelling of his Spirit – that our lives begin to conform to the life of Jesus. We become like him. The focus of our desires shift from ourselves to God. These continual shifts move us further and further away from a focus on ourself and towards a focus on God and others. This all happens because of the overwhelming love we experience on our own journey of transformation with God. Love begets love.
Love may be defined as the will to do good for the object or person that is loved. Here we may be returned to the great commandment that Jesus says is the first thing we should be doing.
Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength…Mark 12:30
We may also begin to unravel some of the wonder that comes with love. There is a singular desire to be with the person we love. There is a singular desire to learn what the other person desires. There is a singular desire to do and be a part of those things. There is a joy that comes when we witness the joy in our beloved at the doing of those things. With God we can trust that what God desires is good. As we begin to desire the desires of God, we begin to change. As our focus toward such things is more and more singular – without admixture or adhesion – the more our own will changes.
Our seeking of the Kingdom of God shifts from a kind of searching in the darkness to a kind of tracking the scent of someone we have been with and known. The tracking turns into a kind of listening for a familiar voice, seeking a familiar dynamic, and goes even deeper. Our seeking shifts as the purity of our heart – the singularity of our will – comes into focus. We have discovered the treasure, and desire nothing else. Our vision comes into focus as our will comes into focus. This idea of our shift in focus isn’t theory as much as it is a statement of reality. As our vision comes into focus we begin to see God.
Eager to go deeper? Explore related questions in this week’s installment of Asking the Questions.