Duality Is Like My Crack

As I sit contemplating whether or not to change the name of this blog (which would involve completely redoing that neat graphic at the top which I spent so much time painstakingly telling my roommate how to do), I finally sit back, satisfied with "the Mad Heart."

With it's loose phonetic association with Lewis Carrol's eccentric hatmaker, its near-cliche poetic feel, and the duality in its biblical basis, it has overcome the fastidious censor of my mind which says all that I produce must be witty, provoking, embedded with symbolism and which decries the poor grammer and self-obsessed monologues of most of the internet's web logs.

In its simple form, the name arises from Ecclesiastes 9:3:
"This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead."

I've always liked Ecclesiastes as it mirrors my cynical constitution, while also confunding many and remaining God-centric. This verse, in particular, does much to explain the nature of man (if what most people do isn't supposed to make sense, then that makes sense of what most people do). But there is duality in the title (and I love duality) that gives a more comprehensive picture. Were man to be left in the gloom of his own heart, thinking himself substance while remaining a shadowy vapor, blind to his decrepit state, stumbling through darkened and dusty terrains seeking a water that would satisfy instead of the filthy cisterns filled with polluted scum-water, then hope would be a word left only for the self-decieved poets and the spiritually insane.

But man is not left in that shadow world. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ kicks down the door of the rebel's heart, cuts through the unholy blackness and breaks the chains that fetter the weary soul to its sin. The rescued heart can do nothing but fall in madly in love with such a Savior. And so, whoever you are, your heart is mad. It is either mad in its evil, or it is mad in its love with the Holy Liberator.