Again

I can't believe I never noticed my heart before,
You are reaching,
For something that is beating,
I can't believe I never noticed my heart before,
Over and again,
Racing under my skin,
I can't believe I never noticed my heart before,
At least it was never until I noticed you

I think that it's really interesting that I have used the lyrics to this song as the address for this hidden blog, but have never once really written on it. I really think that the lyrics to this song carry a two-fold meaning and can be interpreted as such. As I sit alone here in my apartment reflecting on where God has brought me, I felt moved to simply write about this.

When you look at the lyrics, it is plain to see that it was only in coming to recognize something that previously wasn't recognized that we really become in touch with our own humanity. In looking at these lyrics the first way to understand them is to take it in light of the truth and love of God. It isn't until we recognize and realize Who God is, and the fact that He wants us that we truly become in touch with our own humanity. Andrew, my seminarian buddy, and myself were talking the other day and we were discussing the idea that grace builds upon nature. It's in recognizing God and Who He is that we truly come to see the depths of what makes us human, it's in becoming truly in touch with our real, tangible, down right fleshy human experience that we can ever really, truly be holy. It's in noticing Who God is and in turn, noticing who we really are that we can ever come to experience authentic holiness. We can never notice our true hearts, the depths of our own humanity, until we discover who we are in God. It's only in this synergy between us and Him, the depraved and the holy, the stained and the pure, that we can ever really deeply understand and experience the life that the Lord came to give us to the fullest (John 10:10). I never noticed my (human) heart before, until I noticed You.

The second way to interpret this is within the context of purely human relationships. Sometimes our hearts become cold, distant and bitter due to hurt or pain from previous relationships, the most common way this arises is within the context of romantic relationships. What if it's only in noticing that one person that we can truly come to experience our hearts as they were meant to be experienced? What if when we notice that one person that we become in touch with why all the pain, hurt and frustration happened in the past? What if all of those broken dreams and times our hearts were shattered are simply ways to make us become in touch with what and who we truly need so that we may come to truly notice our hearts and not settle for anything less? When we do come to finally notice that one person, it ignites something deep within us, it calls us to something greater and far more beautiful than we can ever imagine. What if these two ideas are connected? What if those of us who God has called to marriage really and truly come to experience our true hearts only through that one special person, which in turn leads us to our own true human experience whereby the grace of God can come and flood our souls, making our hearts better than they could have ever been before? What if it's in experiencing the gift of self, both in giving and in receiving, that our own human experience can even make any sense? It's in noticing our hearts, in whatever way that may be, that we can become holy, plain and simple. Think about this: we cannot be holy without being human. I never noticed my heart before...

Song

"Welcome to the days of wariness,
Where I'm feeling an echo inside my chest,
I've got a heart beating patiently along,
Waiting for the other half of its song."

I have been on a Kina Grannis kick recently, I've been listening to her album almost non-stop for the past four days. The other day I was driving around Rio Rancho and listening to this song and these lyrics just really grabbed me. I started thinking about the state of life that I'm perpetually in (single), and how tiresome it gets. The idea expressed in the lyrics though, "I've got a heart beating patiently along, waiting for the other half of its song," really struck a chord with me in a very real way.

The more that I started to think about it during my drive around Rio Rancho, the more that I really came to reflect on the significance of that. Our lives as Christians are meant to be a song lifted up to the Lord. Throughout scripture and the fathers of the Church we hear about how "singing is praying twice," or the power of a song, or the need to "sing a new song to the Lord." This idea of singing your "life song" is intimately connected to growing and offering up all that you are to the Lord. If you look into the Song of Songs, it's written as (mainly) a duet, between the king and his beloved. The thing that really stood out to me is just simply that two parts are necessary to make that book as beautiful as it is. Right now, I'm simply in the days of wariness, and often it really does feel like there is a hollow, empty echo inside of my chest, waiting to love someone and be loved in return. Despite this though, my heart, the very physicality of my being is continuing to trod and beat along, waiting to be answered. This isn't only a spiritual longing to sing and have my life song complimented by the one that God has ordained for me, but also a very tangible, very real physical longing to have someone to hold, someone to laugh with, someone to grow old with and raise a family with. This physicality ties in theologically with the understanding of the theology of the body, and even biblically that the relationship between a man and a woman is the road to sanctification for many as is witnessed by the prophet Hosea. This longing is simply another means to holiness, for the first time in my life it occurred to me to offer up the suffering of my loneliness for my future spouse. What a beautiful gift that is and can continue to be, to be able to legitimately say to the one who has captured your very being, "Every time I felt lonely and wanted someone to be with, I offered it up for you and you alone, my darling." The song of my heart is waiting to be completed with its second part, it's meant to be a duet, and quite simply whenever the day comes for me, the joy that will well up within me will cause me to sing. Until then, my heart will beat, patiently, waiting for the other half of its song.