The Kiss

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  “Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy—that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep. When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before.” The Kiss By Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

"I'm glad that I don't have that heart anymore."

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"Dr. Christian Barnard tells of one of his heart-transplant patients asking to see the newly removed organ. Obligingly, the doctor brought from the laboratory the large bottle where the old heart had been placed. As the man looked at the bug muscle which once pumped life through his body, the famed surgeon suddenly realized that this was the first time in human experience that a person had ever seeen his own heart.

It was indeed a historic moment. But for the patient the sensation must have been even more moving, for the old heart was worn out. Had it not been replaced, life would soon have been extinct.

After a long pause, the grateful man looked up and said, 'I'm glad that I don't have that heart anymore.'"

Coleman, Robert. Written in Blood: A Devotioal Study on the Blood of Christ. New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1972.

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