Who Holds the Reins of Our Restless Hearts ?

Why was the world so fascinated with the Heard-Depp trial? Was it a global exercise of rubber-necking at a bloody car-wreck on the international virtual highway? Was it honest concern over the direction of domestic violence cases? Was it, as Kate McKinnon said on SNL’s cold open, because it’s “nice to watch a news story and say ‘Mmm…glad it ain’t me!'”

I tried to avoid it, but was not completely successful. The little I did watch was so tragically sad. Two people who pledged their lives to one another “’til death do us part” within a few years had become bitter enemies.

The public watched it as if it were a sporting event. What did those camera’s achieve in terms of justice being served? What made this trial, as opposed to thousands like it, newsworthy?

It’s not that I think Miss Heard and Mr. Depp are reprehensible specimens of humanity. As Frederick Buechner says, “The story of any one of us is, in some measure, the story of us all.” The skeletons that are paraded out of somebody else’s closet momentarily lessen the shame of knowing that our own chifferobes are full of bones. But, if we’re honest, that approach turns in on itself and hands us a mirror, and in all humility we have to ask ourselves, “Could I be next?”

I recently bought a remastered version of one of my favorite CDs: Dry Bones Dance by Mark Heard (no relation). As I listened to the track called “Our Restless Hearts,” the Heard-Depp trial came to mind.

[Verse 1]
Of all the crooks, emotion is the worst one
He took your answers, and he took my questions
We're like two drunks who've lost their prize possessions
Our jungle conversations tend to digress
I am a tiger, you become a tigress
The sharpest fangs won't get us out of this mess

[Chorus]
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Our restless hearts

[Verse 2]
Our lines are written someplace in the classics
I'll be the actor, you can be the actress
I doubt if Romeo was so sarcastic
I fix the blame on you, must be genetic
You smear the blame on me like cheap cosmetics
We pass the blame until we look pathetic

[Chorus]
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Our restless hearts

[Bridge]
It doesn't pay to lie when the truth is so cheap
It doesn't help to cry when the tears are only face-deep
Love is not a thing that we can simply make
It just might help to give when the instinct is to take

[Verse 3]
If I'm a bug, then squash me with a hammer
If I'm a thug, then lock me in the slammer
If this is love, then give your best example

[Chorus]
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Our restless hearts
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Who holds the reins on our restless hearts?
Our restless hearts
Our restless hearts
Our restless hearts

The chorus asks a very Augustinian question. When we try to hold the reins ourselves, our hearts run wild and out of control, often stampeding those in their way. Our hearts long for ultimate satisfaction, which we cannot find in a temporary and contingent good. That is, human relationships are great when our own sense of identity does not depend upon them.

The verses provide several examples of what happens when a relationship attempts to bear a weight it was never meant to bear. Rereading these lyrics—actor and actress, cheap cosmetics—it’s no wonder that I made the connection that I did.

Then the bridge, like the sestet of Petrarchan sonnet, provides the key to answering the question at hand: “Love is not a thing that we can simply make It just might help to give when the instinct is to take.”

There is more to love than the “making” of it (a tragically reductionistic euphemism). And none of us is equipped to give in the ways necessary to bear ultimate weight. Our only hope is to rest in the one who had every right to take, but gave it up for us instead. That is the place where our ultimate need is satisfied and our identity grounded, and it’s from that place that we draw the strength to give when our instincts are to take.

You can listen to Mark Heard’s “Our Restless Hearts” here.

You can read an interesting take on TicToc’s role in “justice” and the outcome of the Heard-Depp trial here.