Gypsy Heart

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit."


More than often I write about the pains of life. I have an advantage in writing about these woes, being keenly aware of them because of my neurological disease. This disorder is a companion that talks too much. It often shouts and screams, causing me to write about the humdrudgeries and boondoggles of the world. About pain, suffering, about the whys and why nots, the philosophical enigmas encasing the human condition. What is not written about, what is silenced by the disease, is the heart, my heart, my gypsy heart.

My girlfriend A. has stood by me, faithful and true, for years now, hopefully for the next 100 years. She not only loves me well, she loves me. Me in all of my goodness, she loves me in all of my brokeness, she loves my gypsiness. And i love her the same.

There was also someone before A. that had a major impact on my life. Like many of the important people in a man's life, that important someone was a woman.

It was my freshman year of college and, to sum up how my formative teenage years had already gone, I was the poster kid for a cool, Evangelical Christian. I knew the Bible backwards and forwards, I listened to underground spiritual music, and there was, and is, no doubt I had faithful connections to the being the world calls God. I do not waiver on the idea that many of the things I have now are the result of those teen years, many good things and many trying things. But this is all stage setting - remember freshman year of college, 17 years of old, the confidence of knowing everything about my life, and now staring into the unhinged world of life without borders. A recipe if I have ever heard of one, but a recipe for what?

So one August afternoon I walk in 3 minuted late to Shakespear class. The professor read me a short but funny riot act as I found my seat. The process of finding a seat became a very short but illmuminating experience. I looked up and saw one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen. Remember this is how a 17 year old would look at the world, always ready for a Summer love. Her name was S. and she was a little older than me and she was the first person I had met with a gypsy heart. And like all gypsy hearts they have a transfering, magnetic personality. Gypsy Hearts uncover other gypsies and they make others feel warm when they are around. Needless to say my 17 year old self fell pretty hard for S. but it wasn't to last the way it started. Not to worry though, S. and I are still friends, my love A. knows S. and I are friends and, if I recall, A. has talked to S. and they are friendly and I think they understand what it means to have a gypsy heart.

All of this, all of this, is a conduit to talk about the real subject, the Gypsy Heart. The Gypsy Heart is the beating of the drums of tribes in Africa, America, everywhere music is played for the love and the need to talk to the world - and those things beyond the world.

I want to get some of the more controversial things I want to say out of the way. I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone will be saved, I believe God is big enough to hold all belief systems together and not be contradictiry. The issue most will draw is this. If A=B and B=C then A=C, people will apply this to spirituality, which is fine, I just don't believe it myself. I believe this portion is included but not everything. Logical spirtuality is highly illogical when dealing with God which is beyond all understanding. However, logic will also reveal portions of God. I hope I have been clear as well as infuriating and intriuging. This was my intent. If you understand what I just said then you will enjoi at least one word in this sentence.

I will go deeper into beliefs later on but I needed to get some of those things out of the way before we got into some of the things Gypsy Heart. This is the heart that calls sailors to the sea, it calls people to be physical therapists, it calls some to be carpenters - the gypsy heart starts with a gypsy spirit, and a gypsy spirit comes from nowhere and leads to somewhere but it is all untold, it is the spirit that does not answer the question why.

The Gypsy Heart, which is the heart touched by the Gypsy Spirit, is the breath of life. It is almost hard to say exactly what should come next in this introduction to the Gypsy Heart. I had to think about it for a long moment. Then it came to me, why not give an example of someone who had a Gypsy Heart.

Richard Wayne Mullins was perhaps the greatest songwriter in all of Christendom. Rich passed from this world in 1997. Rich could have won any award in music that he wanted. He could have one a Grammy award every year. He could have had millions of dollars. His name could have been on marquees nationwide. He could have had whatever he wanted in the music industry yet he chose to have a different life. Instead of glamour he chose a paupers existance. He didn't do this because of obligation to some holier than thou character, he lived the life dictated by his heart. His heart said live on a Hoppe Indian reservation and teach the children to sing. His heart said travel the world giving away your friend's best pair of boots to someone without shoes. I hope the theme is coming through, His Heart said, His Heart said, His Heart said. His Heart had been touched by the Gypsy Spirit and that what all that touched him.

So there it is, the Gypsy Spirit, which turns hearts into Gypsy Hearts. The Gypsy Spirit goes where it wants to, touches who it wants to - and that's okay. Some hearts will not be touched by the Gypsy Spirit, this is allright, if the whole world was filled with gypsies life would be very, very hard - also more on this later. But the meat of this meal is the Gypsy Heart, the Gypsy Spirit, and those who have felt this powerful drawing.

A quick word, when a gypsy heart is ignored it can be dangerous. I mean it can be dangerous anyways, as it goes where it pleases, but a heart ignored, especially a heart that has experienced the fire of the Gypsy Spirit can go very, very cold.

So I encourage you who are of the same cloth as I, don't let your heart run cold. Your nature, the nature of the Gypsy Heart, the nature of the Gypsy Spirit, your calling will hound you if ignored. Like the ghosts who sniffed out Scrooge, the call will be on your scent and to shake it off the trail will make a long, cold life.

So stick with me, keep your heart open, be ready to ask the deep questions, and be ready to explore these deep things, these Gypsy things.