It the glory of God to conceal a thing. It is the glory of Kings to search a thing out.
- Proverbs 25:2
The human heart has been romanticized into artistic metaphor more than any other part of human anatomy, perhaps only rivaled by the eyes.
With beauty falling to the eye of the beholder and irises window panes to the soul, the heart claims it's own sentiments cemented in our collective culture,
"Listen to your heart."
So, are you supposed to be counting the literal heartbeats and feeling it's thrum in your chest as it works constantly and consistently, day in and day out, in waking and slumber, pumping blood through your veins? Or is this some metaphysical metaphor, meaning listen to some inner voice? Either way... weird.
"My heart aches."
You should probably get that checked out.
"My heart is broken."
Is it really though? Because if you're heart was literally split into two like the cartoon depiction of an emoji heart torn straight down the middle, seems like you wouldn't be standing let alone able to articulate your emotional distress. But to each their own.
"My heart is heavy."
The average human heart weighs 8 - 10 ounces... so it shouldn't be that heavy.
"He wears his heart on his sleeve."
If there is an actual anatomical bloody heart stapled to someone's sleeve, then someone else needs to call the police, because that guy is clearly still alive and someone else isn't. Just saying.
When you put any turns of phrase through a literal lens, they seem ludicrous. Still, I'm willing to bet that each of us has felt or observed each of the above metaphors regarding the human heart and by extension the human condition, many a time.
We are temporal beings and rely on the physical trappings of our body to be in working order to keep us breathing and moving and alive, not least of which our hearts. Blood is essential to life, and the heart facilitates it's movements throughout our bodies including up to our brains, which operate and thrive on the proper flow.
It's no wonder then that we equate the very state of our being with the state of our hearts, metaphorical or otherwise. We quantify emotionalism--the melancholic wonder and rapturous beauty that life undulates between--with the physical.
In a sense, we are striving to identify the core of what makes us who we are.
There is much to be said for child and developmental psychology, that our experiences, upbringing traumas and triumphs form and shape the way we think and our instincts and impulses. There is just as much to be said for the unquantifiable spark of life that we come out of the womb glowing with, that shapes our proclivities and tendencies and personality. How else is one to explain the difference of behavior and temperament between days old newborns, other than the imprint of a design that took place somewhere beyond the veil of the temporal?
Take that thought and file it where you will, but I come away believing these are the beginnings of our human soul and implanted within it are the seeds of our future desires, ambitions and passions.
So what if the soul--a metaphysical latticework blueprint of who we are and will be--connects every part of our physical body like a fingerprint unique to who we are, wonderfully our own and terribly sensitive to the whims, failings, wins and fail safes that line the future trails we've yet to blaze?
What if this subatomic spiritual net every takes hold of every nerve ending and muscle and vein, and tugs at our veritable 'heartstrings' when we see the portrait of a dust and rubble covered lone child in the midst of a war torn street or the emaciated frame of a shirtless man holding a pleading sign on the corner of a busy intersection on a blazing brutal summer day?
What if this invisible wire mesh is charged with latent energy and like the electrodes on a defibrillator wrapped around our hearts send electric impulse when you see the thing we were meant for, the very things with which our passion resonates, exciting our minds and sending our hearts palpitating?
Perhaps the soul is the first spark of light and life from which we all were formed, and is the key to understanding our desires, passions, and ambition and compassion. That which unlocks our full potential and allows us in the truest sense to have our hearts broken. To decipher the heart's murmuring and beating and trust it's muscular instincts and impulses, ventricular call signs like an esoteric Morse code, allowing us to feel the weight of glory and pain when a heart is truly made heavy and to have our hearts torn asunder as only a life well lived and people well loved makes possible.
The soul is the heartkey which unlocks that we cannot yet see, but long to behold. That which we know we were made for, but have not yet stepped through the door to pursue. That which we know can exist but as of yet does not.
In every human heart God has concealed a desire for something more. It is His glory and privilege to do so. It is our glory to seek out these things which have been locked away in the heart-shaped box we all carry in our chest, uniquely crafted for us within a vessel that bears His image and likeness and grants us dominion in the land we are living in.
It takes some searching and accounting of yourself, so start with a simple inquiry of your life.
Where am I now?
Where do I want to be?
What things new and good do I want to be and to bring into the world?
When you begin to answer and seek out those questions, that heartkey starts to form in your very hands like wisps of smoke illuminated by the sun, it's warding, cuts and bitting taking shape and coalescing into pure gold, so that you might unlock the door, step into it, and search out the hidden glory that has been waiting.
Even with key in hand, the first step toward the door is a daunting stride. But perhaps we simply need to reconcile that this key and that door and the road beyond are ours and ours alone to tread, set out and set forth by the one who made us in the first place, to live a life reflecting Him and the light of the lattice just beneath the skin.
Kommentare