Help your Heart

I was in an Irish pub recently listening to a traditional band when a young lad about twenty came up to me and he held my hand to his heart and he asked me if I was okay. I told him I was fine and I asked after him.

Then he leant forward and kissed me on the cheek and wished me ‘all the best’ in Gaelic. I was very moved by the young stranger his heart was very warm.

How many places in the world will you see a young lad of twenty kiss a grey haired stranger and welcome him. Later two boys in the same group of lads got up and danced a jig together twirling each other round. It was most endearing they were so natural and uninhibited. Ireland still has a soul in a western world where our soul has been surgically removed from us.

I say in my book The Art of Redemption, to save your soul you have to become warm you can’t just pretend to be nice, all of your feelings and your thoughts and your action have to exude love and acceptance for others.

And you have to dance and sing and bring color into your life or you will be swamped by the greyness of people’s fears; their insanities will become your insanity, their disdain will fuel yours. The hopes and dreams of your deep inner soul will be drowned out by the stern voice of conformity and the wagging finger of the Fat Controllers.

You have to fight for the right to be spiritually free. It is not granted to you automatically, quite the reverse. Tick-tock’s drummer will try to force you to march to its tune and be like it—bland. It will suck you dry to sustain itself. You must encourage yourself to resist and praise yourself when you do. Stuart Wilde