the other side of indifference

What is it that keeps us not only alive but moves us toward thriving?  Is it the mind acutely engaged in its work of observing and helping us to indwell the world around us?  Is it the part of "mind" that we call "heart," which has a different task--namely, that of softening us to see the roundness at the places of loss, the wellness that abides even in pain, the beauty that refuses to relinquish its measure of joy amid the shadows that threaten?  Is it the kind of wonder that startles us into remembering what it was like to see the world for the very first time?  "Unless you become like little children," the seer once said, "you'll never see the holy presence in the midst of this world."  Indeed.