Hearts of Water

Like a living icon, the heart at Calvary Full Gospel has kept me grounded and hopeful all winter long.

You must go see it. The parking lot at the corner of Wax Orchard and SW 220th is a school bus stop during the week and there, at the entrance to the church parking lot/bus stop is a gigantic puddle in the shape of a heart.

In the winter it was covered with ice. Then we had a bit of a dry spell and it disappeared (or missappeared as one of my young one’s use to say). The relentless rains filled it again and full it remains today.

Did you catch that? The heart only reveals its true shape when it’s full of water.

It’s such a lesson to me to remember to cry; remember to be sad about my pain. Do you know why we have such a substance abuse problem on this Island? People don’t cry enough tears that come from being in touch with their pain.

I think I shared with you I use to be queen of the 16 tears. It went like this:

"Oh my, I am having a sad thought. I think I’ll cry. (Sixteen tears) Oh… I’m being silly. I’m making too much of this. I need to just get on with it." Tears dry up.

In those days psychology only had two types of responses to trauma: fight or flight. That’s patriarchy for ya. Patriarchy is about power. Then men started beating drums in the woods to bond. Women had gotten strong enough and vocal enough to say "Hey! Feel or else!" and suddenly psych types said, "Oh, there’s a third choice—frozen".

Most of the world is frozen actually. That’s why we’re in such a mess everywhere. It’s that simple, really.

Now learning to thaw is not simple. That’s a long, arduous, complicated path.

Back to the puddle. When the water, in the middle of deep winter, was frozen in that puddle, surely you could see the outline of the heart. But it didn’t look mysterious. It didn’t look like a phenomenon. It didn’t look like magic.

Water hearts look like magic. When you look at them they have depth and movement and shimmer and stability all at the same time. They have movement and strength and effect.

The colors have variation. There can be sixteen shades in one single puddle.

Ah… that’s what I traded from frozen. I traded sixteen tears for sixteen shades of emotionally flexible living. Hard path… easy trade.

For so many years I couldn’t figure out how God could allow so much cruelty to come into my life. Then I realized, if God always wants the best for me, frozen is not best. God is not a patriarch. God is not interested in power. (remember those of you who like to track Words … ‘not by might, not by power but by my Spirit’). God is about authority. Authority is about encouraging independence and authenticity. You can’t have authority to live your own best life if you are living in power. If you have power, you’re just a bully. There are nice bullies and there are despot bullies, but being a bully is never good for you. We are meant to live in relationship with each other. You can’t live in relationship with each other unless you are exchanging interactions through the authority you have discovered in being your own best self.

(Ok… so that’s my editorial comment about the mommy wars and priests and nuns war that is currently rising from the shadows. Proof that there are women patriarchs -- in the mommy wars -- and male patriarchs --in the priest/nun wars).

Back to shimmering water hearts… trust me, you don’t want to botox your heart with stoicism or rejection of the truth of your own painful experience. It wasn’t until I came to this Island and saw so many people who had shot a needle full of cow urine (apparently what botox is) into their hearts because they thought getting in touch with their pain and having their heart broken would break them. It won’t. A broken heart just makes you more alive. Yield. Reassuringly, there are more people invested in thawing in the last decade. Yea us!!

I was lucky. When my oldest was born I snapped out of it the minute they put him in my arms. I looked at this exquisite miracle looking at me with all the request for trust he could have in his eyes and any investment I had in remaining frozen slipped away into the desire to be utterly and completely bonded to this little guy.

What was it like to feel pain, gut wrenching sorrow, anger, fear and uncertainty? It was a killer. And it took years of processing and trying to figure out how to live in an emotionally botoxed world. But the other thing God can give you if you’re willing to have your heart broken is this…healing. My life became about healing. Oh my… there are not words enough to describe the Joy of that.

I don’t know when we’ll have a long enough dry spell for the water hearts to vanish. But long after they are gone I will remember how God told me one winter when I was at the end of my personal thaw, "Don’t look at the world’s stoicism and power and feel failure. Look at your pliant, wonderful, broken heart and follow that to your heart’s desire I long to give you." Choose life.

Love,
Deborah