Do you remember the feeling you get when opening a book, you're longing to read? A kind of eagerness to swallow the first pages and to get deep with it - Like meeting an old friend, you haven't seen for a while. Holding the book in your hands, feeling the cover and the worn pages ... going through the memories of the place and the situation of life the last time you read it.
I had this feeling the other week, as I picked up Søren Kierkegaard's The Purity of Heart is to will one thing. I bought this book from a library sale under my studies in Continental Theological Seminary in Bruxelles -96. The book was hidden behind a stock of commentaries in the lowest shelf - waiting to be discovered. I picked it up and sank in a deep armchair, forgetting the time and the place ... Clearly, this was love at first sight.
Kierkegaard is authentic with his questions about the true longing and motives of one's heart - sharpening the focus as you turn the pages. Am I willing to seek the Good / God? Am I ready to give what it takes to be completely open and honest? Do I dare to see the double-mindedness of my self in the eyes ... Would I rub off the dust and stains from the mirror of my heart, to be able to see the reflection of my self in His clear light?
The honesty of Kierkegaard's own reflections about the condition of his heart gives the reader courage to give himself in the proces. At the same time the reader feels being safe, since Kierkegaard confidently assures and reasons, that when we are willing to seek wholeness and healing, God will meet us where we are, expecting nothing else than honesty and willingness to recieve.
Kierkegaard's philosophical approach requires that the reader is alert and willing to go with him in to the rhetoric discussions and arguments about the condition of one's heart. Concluding in the end, that the good is all that comes from God.
I keep returning to Kierkegaard's book The purity of the heart is to will one thing. Each time reading it is a new experience ... relating to my current situation in life & the condition of my heart. This makes the book is ageless, crossing the boundaries of time and place - bringing your heart and The Good / God in focus. PS. I photographed this series as my final assignment to the Art of Composition-class by Tracey Clark / Big Picture Classes.
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