It was one of those “Art in the Park” festivals.I milled about the paintings bunched under the trees along the sidewalk. One picture had attracted a crowd, and I ambled over for a look. In the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the canvas, the artist had painted a human heart inside a box. The rest of the canvas was blank, a gulf of empty space stretching between the two boxed hearts. The painting was titled Relationship.
As I stood wedged among the strangers, gazing at the picture, the truth of the image pierced me. I backed out of the crowd and found a bench, deeply affected, unable to get those boxed hearts out of my mind. Have I unknowingly related to people like that, God? I asked. Have I closed away my heart in subtle ways and let distance grow between myself and others?
That day I felt God summoning me to a journey of opening my heart, of creating deeper intimacy in my relationships to others. Won’t you join me as we focus on the relationships in our lives? Each month we’ll discover a new way to dismantle the boxes that keep us from relating to others heart-to-heart.
