Longings---Voices We Need to Hear IV

If I Could Tell You Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay, If I could tell you, I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so. There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you, I would let you know. The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reasons why the leaves decay; Time will say nothing but I told you so. Perhaps the roses really want to grow, The vision seriously intends to stay; If I could tell you I would let you know. Suppose all the lions get up and go, And all the brooks and soldiers run away; Will time say nothing but I told you so? If I could tell you, I would let you know. W.H. Auden If you push your head in the pillow at night just right, you can sometimes pick it up. Cupping the hand over the ear and pushing the little flap in the opening of the ear makes it appear too. It's harder to do when you are trying, its just kinda happens and then you are aware of it. You are hearing the steady rhythm of your heart beating. You are hearing the sound it makes keeping you alive. First comes the hard beat, then the echo. THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump. To hear your own heart beat is a good thing but its a thing we take for granted. If we hear it too loudly or think about it too much we change the pillow to the cool side and forget about it. Maybe we shouldn't. I remember when Clay, our youngest suffered with asthma as a child. It was pretty severe. The doctor had us purchase a stethoscope to listen to his lungs to catch the wheezing as soon as possible to start treatment. But that little, cheap stethoscope also picked up the heart beating. As a father this fascinated and took me to a place of awe at the same time. This is my son's heart beat. It keeps him going, it keeps him alive. It was sometimes slow and steady, at other times, depending on the asthma and the medicine, it fairly raced in his chest. It could assure me, it could frighten me. Have you heard your heart lately? Has your Father in heaven heard your heart's slow, steady beat or the one that is racing trying to keep up or catch your breath? And I don't mean the physical one either. I mean your heart as more defined by your longings, desires, hopes, dreams, where all these are hatched and nurtured to maturity. There's the rub. We don't hear that heart. We get so busy living life that there is little life in our living. We haven't heard our hearts lately. We've forgotten to dream, to hope, and when we did it was too little, too hurried. We mistook those beatings as a disturbance and flipped over the pillow and went on with our lives. And we are neither assured nor frightened. So, what is it for which you truly long? Have you settled for survival? Have you decided that just making a living, having some money, enjoying a hobby is enough? What cravings does the voice of your heart speak? What meaning for your life have you sought? Have you heard your own heart? Better still, have you heard God's heart? How about His desires for your heart? There are two ways to read that oft quoted scripture from Psalm 37, verse 4: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." One way to see it is to delight yourself in the Lord and the things you want\need will come your way. That's a nice middle class, materialistic and popular way to look at it. Another way is to delight yourself in the Lord and He will put the right desires, His desires in your heart. In typical fashion we get to wondering about the second half of the verse and forget the key which is the first part of the verse: delight yourself in the Lord. Auden's poem at the beginning of the essay talks about the fickleness of time. It says that time only looks back to say "I told you so." "Time will tell," we say. What will time say about our longings? Were they fulfilled but found empty? Or will we learn to listen to the heart of God, allow Him to fill our hearts with his desires for life and have the visions that truly intend to stay? If I could tell you, I would let you know. Terry