Mahmud Shabestari said that if you cleave the heart of a raindrop a thousand oceans will pour out.
I often wonder what would happen if you cleaved the heart of a teardrop, or the heart of a bead of sweat, or even, just simply, a heart.
If I cleaved my own heart what would pour out?
Would I be able to know everything about who I am and everything about who I was?
Would I be able to know what parts of my personality make me who I am like which elements compose the flesh of my body?
What percentage of myself is an eagle scout? What percentage a prep school kid? Do I have trace amounts of bad boy, saint, sinner?
How much of myself is poet, painter, frat boy, politician, business man, friend, lover, player, beloved, enemy, superstar, nobody.
If all of these oceans poured out of my heart would I be able to float about them?
Would it be as pleasurable and tubing down the Brazos River?
Or would I find myself drowning, caught in the riptide of my own personality?
Maybe my spirit would rise up like a mountain and I would sit from its peak, looking down at myself spread out like an ocean, and realize that I have no horizon.
Maybe the sun would still be shining so brightly until I realized it was the Son, and sunbeams of grace would evaporate the waters of myself until clouds formed.
Maybe these clouds would drift over the mountain of my spirit and I would become sad and confused and wonder why I could not see the sun anymore.
Then maybe the clouds would break and it would rain and I would feel that all hope was lost. And I would feel abandoned. And I would feel alone.
Then maybe in a moment of desperation I would cleave the heart of a raindrop and a thousand bits of me mixed with a thousand bits of God would pour out.
And in that moment I would realize that if I cleaved my own heart what I would see is the divine.
For I am a man, and I am made in His image, before I was born my soul resided with Him, and after I am buried I will return to His buxom.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
– Darryl Ratcliff
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