Softening Hearts

   We live in a world of coconut hearts. I'm not sure how many of you have tried to open a whole, fresh, coconut, but it is a process involving a hammer, nails, something to catch the milk, and then either more hammering or high heat from an oven. I often just give up when I try to open coconuts, settling for canned coconut milk and the dehydrated "meat" (ie shredded flakes) from the bakers isle. But when persistence gets the better of me, the reward of fresh milk and "meat" beats anything else. 

   So why am I explaining to you how to open a coconut? To make the point that the shell around the precious innards is so hard that it makes it a task demanding diligence in order to break it open and reap the tasty rewards. We live in a society where hearts are like coconuts, hard hard shells made from years of rejection and pain cover the vibrant part that beats life. And we are too lazy to break open people's hard hearts. We would rather be friends with people who have already had their shell broken away or we just assume that people with their shell will never change and accept their abrasiveness. But when we do that, we substitute the milk and meat of fresh life or the dehydrated stuff you get in the grocery store. We settle for the artificial instead of aspiring for what is true, because we live in a society that desires what is easiest and quickest with everything from how we eat to relationships.