It is summer here, which means a little more time at home, enjoying my garden from a patio chair, or in my garden pulling weeds (yes, I rather do enjoy it), taking a nap in the sun after pulling weeds (yes, I enjoy this even more), and reading books (yes, I have a habit of reading more than one book at a time), which means going though the ziggurats of awaited books on my study floor.

From my reading, three stories are still casting about in my mind.

One is about the Tower of Babel. A familiar tale from my Sunday School days in southern Michigan, when as a young boy I was captivated by graphics of a grand edifice of wood-reaching into the clouds-populated with dozens of builders / workers playing out a scene of exaggerated chaos and exasperation. We were warned that this photo teaches us about the consequences of pridefulness. (Which I assumed meant a life balancing on skyscraper beams while wearing costumes from the movie Ben-Hur.)

Thinking that mankind may be feeling too big for its britches, God said: "Come, let us go down and confound their speech." And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, so that they would not be able to return to each other, and they left off building the "city," which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth."  I'll be the first to say that not speaking a common language may be more detrimental than the alternative.

So consider this: what if the story is not just about the inability to communicate because of language barriers? What if even those who spoke the same language could no longer understand each other; that the breakdown was not just about words and sentences, but deeper. Perhaps this is a story about losing a shared language.

A shared language of the heart.

A shared language to community and a higher cause.

Yes, we do our best to obfuscate any shared language with judgment, prejudice, self-absorption and greed. But we do so to our diminishing.

On Friday night I attended a Vashon Allied Arts art event about Elders. Elders are not old people. We have plenty of those. Elders are our repositories of wisdom. And sadly, we are a culture without Elders.

At the event, Michael Meade used the illustration of an Ancient Greek theater, where a protagonist wrestles with life. More often than not, choosing to say, "I give my life with no regret, bitterness or self-pity."

It is another way of talking about the language of the heart. In this case, authenticity and integrity--or being genuine in your own skin. This is in contrast to those on the stage behind the protagonist, the hypocrites, (literally an "answerer" or "interpreter"). It's how we come by our word hypocrite, implying "feigned feelings or mere acting."

The third story is about an old Rabbi teaching his student about God's creation of the human race.  God labored carefully to create man in his image.

After he finished, he felt, oddly, unsatisfied; You see, God wanted to create a being he could relate to, a partner.

But man was lacking one key attribute that God had-the ability to create. So God made the earth and placed man in its challenging environment. In this environment, man was forced to create-to build shelter, to raise crops, to use fire.

Now man had all the attributes of God.

"I don't understand," the student asked the Rabbi, "Why did God go to all this trouble? Why not just give man creative powers to begin with?"

"Ah," answered the Rabbi, "Creative power is the one thing that cannot be given."

Meaning? Creative power comes from within.

Why? Because the impetus to creativity is choice. Not from compulsion or obligation or coercion or oppression.

This is not easy to see. Or embrace.

And we find any number of reasons to deny this endowment.

When we embrace this capacity for choice and this capacity for creativity we live whole-hearted. We live the language of the heart.

What does it mean to live--to choose--from this reservoir? From the language of the heart and authenticity and creativity?

On March 3, 2013, I witnessed such a choice.

I was honored to participate in a Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage (to Selma and Montgomery and Birmingham to commemorate Bloody Sunday and crossing the Selma Bridge). We sat in the First Baptist Church of Montgomery (in the 60s led by Ralph Abernathy and significant in the Montgomery Bus Boycott).

Police Chief Kevin Murphy was not initially invited to the event, but was asked to speak only after Montgomery's mayor and director of public safety were unable to attend. And Chief Murphy went off script. He was supposed to say, "Welcome to Montgomery." Instead, he said he wanted the Montgomery Police Department to be "heard in a different light than what history has recorded in years past. There's still a lot of work to do; we know that. We, the police department, need to make the first move to build that trust back in our community that was once lost because we enforced unjust laws. Those unjust laws were immoral and wrong. But you know what? It's a new day. And there's a new police department and a new Montgomery here and now and on the horizon."

Captain Murphy asked Rep. John Lewis (our pilgrimage leader) to stand, and come forward. Rep. Lewis--a Civil Rights worker, a Congressman--was on the Selma Bridge that original Bloody Sunday, and was beaten.

Captain Murphy said simply, "We owe you an apology."

"When you got off the bus in 1961, you didn't have a friend in the police department." (At the time, the Police department stood to the side as protestors were beaten and killed.) "I want you to know that you have friends in the Montgomery Police Department--that we're for you, we're with you, we want to respect the law and adhere to the law, which is what you were trying to do all along." Chief Murphy removed his badge, handing it to John Lewis, "This symbol of authority, which used to be a symbol of oppression, needs to be a symbol of reconciliation."

"It means a great deal," Lewis said later. (Lewis had been arrested during civil rights protests in cities across the south, saying it was the first time a police chief had ever apologized to him.) "I teared up. I tried to keep from crying."

When asked after, Murphy told reporters, "I did it because it was the right thing to do."

Here's the deal: We can create. We can create bridges for reconciliation and second chances and peace making. We can create roads for mercy and generosity and justice. We can create floors for dancing and music and celebration. We create bandages for wounds and fractured spirits and broken hearts. We create sanctuaries for safety and prayer and hope.

I do know this: When creativity spills, I live with my heart unclenched and expanded. And I am no longer a walking resentment in search of a cause.

In that Montgomery church I realized that it doesn't matter what we expect from life, but what life expects from us. As a result, we can choose to unleash the heart, in order to be our better selves.

And no one can take that away. They can demean us, belittle us, criticize us and silence us. But no one can take that away.

So. Today. I choose to speak the language of the heart.

To create.

One choice at a time.

What about tomorrow? We can't control that.

What about reaction or public opinion? We can't control that.

What about acceptance? We can't control that.

There is no technique here. An invitation maybe.

I wish I could tell you how to do what Chief Murphy did.

And in the end, we want to know... will this work?

The roses in my garden are flaunting their final early blooms, some branches bowed and weighted from effusively petaled Old Garden Roses. With a slight breeze, petals parachute and float as if a squadron to ground below. A gift bestowed, no questions asked.