It’s the heart, the heart, the damn heart, comrades, that is the star of the spiritual show. If you’ve had a bit of a browse at my last few posts, you’ll have picked up on the “changed-heart theme.” From Aristotle through to the mighty Hebrews prophets, it really is all about the heart.
Ultimately, on the spiritual trek, nothing gets you a fast track, guaranteed, no questions asked, first-class ticket, to ‘heaven on earth,’ like a changed heart. This is the unequivocal promise from the weird and wonderful Jeremiah, when he trots out this mighty gem.
“I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart,” (Jeremiah 24:7.)
It takes time, usually a lot of time.
I would love to report that this heart change business is a quick and easy process, where you just wake up one morning, decide the time is right, pull the correct lever, and praise the lord alleluia, job done. Sadly for most of us, this on call, wham bang, thank you mam, one-off spiritual heart transformation is probably an illusion, albeit quite a nice one.
The reality for most people who have experienced this kind of profound spiritual change is that it is neither quick nor easy! Actually it takes time, usually a lot of time and a good deal of suffering just to get to the starting line.
The modern mystic Thomas Merton writes about the darkness that comes when God strips away our false selves and re-makes us as the people we were intended to be.1 In most cases, this will be a series of incremental changes that happen over time, usually years, rather than the sudden and complete change that we may wish for. This involves a lot of patient waiting. Make no mistake, God’s big on the waiting game, and those who tread the spiritual path must learn to play by its rules.
Metaphor for our own exile experiences.
Jeremiah was writing for people whose whole world had been decimated, a nation destroyed by invaders, with most of the survivors taken away to Babylon as slaves. It’s hard to even imagine the level of desolation that the Israelites subsequently suffered during their 70 long years of waiting for restoration in the Babylonian exile. It is one thing to experience a deep sense of loss, regarding one’s own immediate circumstances. But it’s a whole different level when that hopelessness extends to your children and their children after them.
Of course you don’t have to be an ancient Israelite to experience the desolation of the heart. This biblical account can act as a metaphor for our own exile experiences. Just ask any recovering alcoholic or folks who have been ravaged by depression, or the myriad of other life experiences, that break our hearts and leave us lost and broken. Whatever the circumstances, there is an inconvenient truth in the spiritual heart change game that must be acknowledged. To get to the starting gate, brokenness is an essential requirement and I can certainly attest to that. As Elizabeth O’Connor movingly writes, “Those who participate in change must participate in death.”2 Now there’s nothing quick or easy about that!
The good news, however, for those of us who have walked the long lonesome mile of exile, with all its attendant suffering, is that spiritually we have been made ready for much better days ahead. As one of the Hebrew poets says, “The Lord lifts up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down” (Psalm 145:14). The trick is, you’ve got to experience the falling, bowed down period, before you get to the lifted up, raised heart phase. This means waiting, usually in the dark, lots of excruciating damn waiting in exile. I’ll have more to say about that in my next post.