There is a touching scene in the movie “Ratatouille” where
the villain Anton Ego Nostalgia experiences a transformation. Anton is a hard
and unforgiving food critic whose reviews can make or break a restaurant. He carries
his large critic’s pen like a blunt weapon waiting for its next victim. He
enters the once famous “Gusteau’s Restaurant” that since has been downgraded by
previous reviews he wrote. Anton Ego is sitting at a table like a mean judge
ready to pass sentence without mercy when he is served a simple peasant dish (a
poor man’s meal). He takes the first bite and is instantly transported back to
his childhood, a time when he was a person . . . a time where he felt loved.
Tears flow from his eyes, as he remembers what it was like to be so alive.
Back in the present, Anton’s lethal pen crashes to the ground
like a large anvil as if unburdening him. Then his perpetual scowl is replaced
by a warm smile as he devours the rest of the humble food.
Everyone
has heart – not the muscle that pumps between 5 and 10 pints of blood through
your veins, but a spiritual heart . . . The deepest part of you . . . The part
that believes or despairs, is angry or lustful, where passion lives as well as
deadness . . .The part of you that is deeply moved by a sunset or a beautiful
song . . . The part that is crushed by rejection or elated by good news. It is
because of your heart that there exists a voice in you that cries out, “There
must be more!”
Even
The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz acknowledges that he could not do anything
without that unseen part of us called the heart.
“Just to register emotion, jealousy, devotion,
And really feel the part.
I could stay young and chipper
and I’d lock it with a zipper,
If I only had a heart.”
If I Only Had a Heart
The Wizard of Oz
Fortunately Anton Ego found his heart from a childhood memory
of what once was.
The way back to a passionate life-filled heart is not
complicated but as simple as letting God help you rediscover your heart. The
reality is that “the way” never really left you – It was only obscured by the
fog of life. Paul promises in Roman,
“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”
Romans 10:8
Jesus
is ever standing in the doorway or our hearts seeking entrance, waiting for us
to reconnect with Him and ourselves.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears
my voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and eat with him,
and he with Me.
Revelation 3:20
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