Black Hearts (not associated with Joan Jett...)

There was one black-construction paper heart and one red-construction paper heart that sat on the table behind Miss Lutrell's chair.  She was a legendary second grade Sunday School teacher at the Methodist church on the corner of Metropolitan and Moreland Avenue.  The church was named after Martha Brown and the neighborhood was called East Atlanta.  When she wasn't teaching us songs we'd remember the rest of our lives - "THE B-I-B-L-E, YES THAT'S THE BOOK FOR ME!" and the song about the "church in the wildwood" (which fondly brings to mind the "Man In A Hurry" episode of the "Andy Griffith Show")  - she was teaching us the significance of those construction paper hearts. 

Miss Lutrell told us that the red heart represented someone fortunate enough to know Jesus.  I'm not being sarcastic when I say that I was always afraid I didn't know Jesus because in my juvenile mind one had to be in the physical presence of someone before you could say you knew them.  The black heart, on the other hand, was representative of someone who didn't know Jesus.  I was fearful that was me as I'd never actually met the man.  But through her lessons I would soon learn that one knew Jesus through the good things in their lives like sweet mamas and daddies and roofs over our heads and food to eat and sunrises and full moons and warm beds to sleep in and hamburgers from Charlie's Place (which was down at the corner of Glenwood and Moreland.)  Jesus manifested himself in many happy ways and if you knew and loved Him your heart was that beautiful red.

So who, then, possessed the black hearts?  I reckoned they lived in the people I saw on the news, the ones that stole,shot, stabbed and murdered.  THOSE were the black hearts.  Unfortunately, growing older I came to realize that the black heart manifests itself in many ways and not all of them have a thing to do with religion or whether or not you know the Son of God.  As my dearly-departed mother put it, "there's just a lot of meanness in the world."

I think it's sad that they've had to come up with a name for "shaken child syndrome".  I think it's sad that here in 2018 people are marching under Nazi flags and harbor a hate based solely on color or ethnicity. It's even sadder that there's people in high places that defend them.  Speaking of those in high places I'm sad that they're rounding up humans that have lived nowhere but here and separating them from family and sending them to a country that's never been home.  I'm sad that power is not used to keep us safe but to feed self-interests and egos and that's now the definition of leadership.  There are no more statesmen, only politicians.  "There's just a lot of meanness in the world" but I never expected it to be manifested in those who swore constitutional oaths to protect the average folks.

I think it's sad that hearing words like "human shields", "human trafficking" and "sex trafficking"on the news no longer cause our jaws to drop.  They elicit a response no more dramatic than we give to car wrecks and snowstorms.  People are hungry and can't get health care in the richest country on the planet.  When hurricanes and natural disasters hit there are those who leave dogs tied to trees or cats locked in the basement to drown or become miracles.  "There's just a lot of meanness in the world."

Beyond the "meanness" quote one of my mother's other favorites was "he's quit preaching and gone to meddlin' " whenever a preacher got personal.  And it's quite likely I've quit preaching and gone to meddlin'  But I am sad that the black heart has outgrown second grade Sunday School theology. I'm sad that it's so mainstream.  I'm not sure what the solution is but I think my father-in-law had what would be a good start.  He was an elementary school principal and I'm told that he greeted students at the door every morning at the front door of the school, be it rainy, cold or hot.  And he gave each student a thumbs-up and told them to "do something good today."  It might be a start if we'd all just do something good today. And  I know that I do far too little good when I see the picture that floated around the Internet of an old man taking a bag full of tennis balls he'd collected to an animal shelter so that  homeless dogs had something to chase.  Good may make a comeback yet.  Having a few more Miss Lutrells and a few more old men wanting to make dogs happy would be a start.