A Note to the Reader
This reflection is not a historical analysis, though it begins with history. It is a spiritual meditation on the evolution of human consciousness—from the Age of Reason to the Age of the Heart. While it honors the gifts of intellect and inquiry, it invites the reader into a deeper kind of knowing: one rooted in compassion, intuition, and inner guidance.
The Age of Reason
The Age of Reason—also known as the Enlightenment—was a cultural movement in 17th–18th century Europe that emphasized rational thought, scientific inquiry, and individual liberty.
During this age, humanity gained extraordinary knowledge. We learned to measure, analyze, and explain. It helped humanity challenge superstition, question authority, and build systems of progress. Medicine, democracy, and education all benefited from its clarity.
But in the pursuit of logic and certainty, something quieter was left behind.
Emotion was treated as unreliable.
Intuition was dismissed.
Spiritual wisdom was sidelined.
While we honor the gifts reason gave us,
we must also name what it could not carry:
the wisdom of the Heart.
A Useful but Incomplete Era
In the Age of Reason,
the egoic mind took center stage.
It thrives on control,
on being right,
on knowing without feeling.
It prizes intellect over intuition,
logic over mercy,
certainty over mystery.
It helped us to organize,
but not to understand.
We mastered analysis,
but not how to listen.
We learned how to build empires,
but not how to hold each other.
Reason gave us the ability to categorize.
To sort, to label, to define.
But then we judged.
We ranked.
We assigned worth.
We built hierarchies of value—
based not on love,
but on logic distorted by ego.
The Heart asks a different question.
Not “Is it efficient?”
Not “Is it profitable?”
But—“Is it kind?”
Reason taught us to measure.
We learned to quantify intelligence, productivity, even worth.
But then we mistook numbers for truth.
We valued performance over compassion.
We called it progress.
The Heart asks,
“Does it nurture the soul?”
Knowledge doesn’t come with wisdom.
Wisdom arises from the Heart—
from compassion, intuition, and presence.
Without it, knowledge is heartless:
capable of building systems,
but not relationships;
capable of explaining life,
but not cherishing it.
Knowledge was never the problem.
We weren’t ready to hold it wisely.
Wisdom asks more of us than intellect.
It asks us to listen with the Heart.
The Heart remained offstage,
watching and waiting in the wings.
Not because it is weak,
but because it is wise.
Truly, it is Wisdom.
Now is the Heart’s curtain call.
Not to erase reason’s performance,
but to complete it.
To invite a new kind of Mind—
one that listens, feels, and leads with love.
The Shift: From Head to Heart
This time has been foretold
by mystics, prophets, and poets.
By those who listened beneath the noise
and heard the rhythm of a new age approaching.
Not an age of destruction,
but of integration.
Not the end of reason,
but the beginning of wisdom.
The Heart doesn’t dismiss reason.
It enfolds it in compassion.
It honors its clarity,
but insists on mercy.
It follows the deeper Law—
the one that holds all creation in Love.
This is the Age of the Heart:
Where wisdom is not just what we know,
but how we hold what we know.
Christ Consciousness is the union
of clarity and compassion.
It is the compass that points toward Home
when the map disappears.
The map is disappearing.
The systems no longer fit.
The doctrines feel too small.
The path we were handed
has not led us Home.
What now do we trust?
We begin to trust the compass.
Compass vs. Map
In the Age of Reason, we trusted the map.
We wanted clear roads, fixed destinations, and guaranteed outcomes.
We followed paths drawn by others—systems, doctrines, identities—
believing they would lead us Home.
But the map was never truly ours.
It was borrowed, inherited, imposed.
It could not show us the terrain of the soul.
Now, in the Age of the Heart,
we are learning to trust the compass.
It doesn’t offer certainty.
It doesn’t show the whole route.
But it always points toward Truth.
The compass is the Christ within.
It moves in rhythm with grace.
It doesn’t rush.
It doesn’t miss turns.
It simply says, “This way.”
Trusting the Compass
Some still cling to the map.
Like the windshield washer
who trusts it without question—
because it always takes him
to his favorite destination:
the Land of Illusion.
There, he can polish his fantasies—
Power. Prestige. Control. Rightness.
He scrubs the mirror until it gleams,
but never wonders what he’s looking at.
Never questions the reflection.
Never asks, “Is this real?”
The Land of Illusion is seductive.
It flatters the ego.
It rewards performance.
It promises control.
Now it is starting to crumble.
But the ego doesn’t surrender.
It panics.
It grabs the glue and the glitter.
It tries to patch the cracks
with more power,
more dominance,
with louder monologues of certainty—
and more division.
Because division distracts.
It splinters the truth.
It keeps us arguing over fragments
so we never see the Whole.
It protects the illusion
by keeping us apart.
We see it in the world—
leaders clinging to control,
systems tightening their grip,
voices rising not in truth,
but in fear.
The ego mistakes collapse for danger.
It tightens. It resists.
It calls it failure.
It calls it threat.
But the Heart sees it differently.
Not an ending—
but a doorway.
A chance to step out of illusion
and into what’s real.
The ego disappears in the Whole.
Not shattered—but absorbed.
Not erased—but re-membered.
The illusion dissolves,
and what remains
is mercy.
We trusted the map because
it made the world feel predictable.
Letting it go can feel like we’re lost.
There is grief in releasing the map.
But there is grace in what comes next.
Only the good chauffeur knows
the way to Reality.
Christ doesn’t need the map.
Christ listens to the compass—
because Christ is united with Wisdom.
Trust is not passive.
It’s not blind.
It’s not weak.
It’s a quiet courage—
the kind that moves forward
without needing certainty.
We learn to trust the compass by listening.
You’ve known it.
That quiet pull that doesn’t shout,
but never leaves.
The whisper that says,
“You don’t have to rush.”
“You don’t have to prove.”
“You don’t have to be anyone
but who you are.”
This is inner knowing.
This is the compass within.
The more we follow it,
the more we recognize its voice.
The more we walk in rhythm with grace,
the more the road begins to feel like Home.
Closing: The Way Forward
The map is fading.
The compass is stirring.
The Heart is beginning to lead.
This is not the end of knowing.
But the beginning of Wisdom.
Not the loss of direction,
but the birth of discernment.
We are learning to walk without guarantees.
To listen without rushing.
To move in rhythm with grace.
May we trust the whisper
more than the noise.
May we follow the compass
with quiet courage.
May we let the Heart lead us Home.
Next Post: Diving Timing & Prophecy
Rev. Joan M. Kistler 