Pure Flavor, Pure Heart

I recently went to Toscanini's in Cambridge, the standard for good ice cream. Although I typically love to have a lot going on in my ice cream, my favorite flavor at Toscanini's is Burnt Caramel.  No fudge, peanut butter, caramel ribbon, or chocolate covered anything.  Toscanini's doesn't need to fill the ice cream with a lot of contrasting flavors or candies because the quality is in the ice cream itself.  Burnt Caramel has an incredibly smooth texture, which makes the ice cream seem light and less dense than other flavors.  The taste is a mature caramel flavor; sweet, with an edge that prevents it from being too sugary or simply too plain.  The edge is what keeps you coming back for more, and the inviting texture carries the flavor through to the last bite.  A pure and sophisticated ice cream experience!  The Burnt Caramel was all about a singular flavor, just pure burnt caramel.

I want to tell a story today about being pure of heart.  Not surprisingly, it involves a child.  True story.  A mom heard about a healing service which was to take place in her church on a Tuesday evening.  She decided she wanted to go, and wanted to take her five year old daughter with her.  Her daughter had many food allergies, which required a great deal of accommodation, planning, and preparation, to be able to eat safely inside and outside of the home.  As a person of faith, she thought it could only help.  The mom explained the reason for the service to the child, and told her that she could pray for whatever she wanted, such as food allergies.  Since the child was the kind of child who didn't mind church and liked accompanying the mom on all sorts of outings, she was happy to go.  So the child and the mom went to the service, and it was a nice service, with music and readings, and a special part of the service where people could go up and receive a healing prayer.  At first not many people got up, but then most of the people in the church went forward, to receive a prayer for whatever was in their hearts.  The mom asked the child if she wanted to go up, and the child said yes.  The child, so very small, walked up to receive a healing prayer with her mom, and then went back to the pew and said a prayer.  There were few children there that night, but the child seemed unaffected by that, and seemed perfectly comfortable sitting through, and participating in, the healing service.  The mom leaned over as the service was drawing to a close and said quietly, "What did you pray for?"  She waited for the child's answer, fully expecting the child to say that she had prayed for healing from her food allergies.  The mom was poised to tell her what a wonderful prayer that was.  

"I prayed for the poor people," the child said.

A pure heart.  An unselfish heart.  How freeing, to escape our own concerns, needs, and wants, and think about someone else, even for a moment.  

Buy someone else an ice cream this week.  And pick a great flavor!