may your heart break....and mine too..

Common wisdom has it that heartbreak should be avoided at all cost. But common wisdom is not always right. In fact it, probably, rarely is. Such wisdom comes from the experience of common fears and thus normally lacks the ambition to grow out of that fear. For this fear, and its twisted logic, leads us to stifle imagination, cripple wonder and to live the safe-ordinary lives that can create nothing truly spectacular. In the hum drum life, where safety is king, any act or word that may have even the slightest element of apparent risk is crucified and every path to uncertain glory is the road that will not be taken.
We are taught early in life that safety is to avoid pain and enhance pleasure. If heartbreak is the worst kind of internal pain then any possible step to that house must not be given room to grow in our minds. This colours everything. Soon we have no real dreams or passion or want or desire. All we have must be processed through the great machine of self-preservation and serve the demi-god of the circumstances we can see, imagine or control with only our naked eye and the eyes of others that have done nothing with the gift of life.
Yet we cannot thrive in this life-house without the ingenuity of our sense of wonder, our need for real passion in our lives, our constant craving to act out the dreams long held in our storied hearts. For true material and spiritual advancement is anchored on our great search of the unknown, our questioning of the shadows and learning the uncomfortable answers of the light. We live lives that can only be challenged and enriched by taking risk.
Stop. Now imagine for a second that you have done all I recommend above. That you have let your heart set out on to uncertain seas and sea shores. And you have failed. Imagine that this has left your heart a little more broken than before or it has crushed you completely. What to do now?
Here, we reach the crux of the matter. For I do not only recommend that you risk all for the sake of truth but I also recommend that when your attempt at reaching for the stars fails and fades before your teary eyes that you let yourself fall. That you let your heart break.
Now, my aim is not to trivialize pain or to exaggerate the unpractical but I do believe that in pursuing the extra-ordinary life that heartbreak may be necessary and ‘practicality’ less so. Sadly our examples of success seem to push us toward the inner thinking box rather than spring us out of it. Our reaction is to copy and not to innovate or build upon. There is a genuine but misguided belief to save people without a saviour or a saving path, to protect them from the ills of this world while also shielding them from the possibility of things. Christianity, at its core, offers another path-the saved must understand the sacrifice of the saviour, acknowledge it in all its brutality and daily live in the serenity of the grace it offers. It says “carry your cross” “die daily” not as pseudo-masochistic undertakings but as reminders that true character is made in the furnace of ordeal. To avoid ordeal is to miss the opportunity to grow. Everything in life tells us that it is in difficult times that words like courage, leadership, perseverance, triumph have any meaning. We avoid such trying times to our own detriment.
Heartbreak? To be broken by an event shows you are invested enough in an outcome to be affected by it. It is not cowardly to fall apart because your dreams and hopes have been dashed. It is cowardly to not dare a dream. It is not weak to cry tears when you are hurt. It is weak to not admit hurt or to worship that hurt as an excuse for inertia. It is not foolish to be used or deceived for it is wise to learn to trust in people, principles, and possibilities. There is nothing wrong in being wrong for it leaves open the door to be made right.
For all failure can lead to eventual success and every letdown is innately beautiful because of the creation or re-creation that can come from chaos. The light that is always ready to conquer your dying day. The truth that is always willing to correct the lies you have bought and sold to your-self.
In the end the truth is what the soul desperately needs. It is worth the broken heart because it is the final, crucial healing for the heart. Truth sits above all realism, practicality, relativity. It cannot be subjective because by its very nature it is objective.
We hope on things everyday that will break our hearts, all limited, finite, and not able to satisfy. I do not recommend that anyone tries by effort to shut out these false whispers because they help us realize the great shout of God. For even the lie has the purpose of failing so the truth may stand. We may need to hit our head against the wall in the dark to remember to look for the light switch. I do not wish to puncture any balloons of hope too soon. I have often made the mistake of trying to burst my own too soon or help others to do the same to theirs. It does not work. Truth must come from the realization of the individual heart. You may plant the seed or water the growing plant but you never, ever give the increase. That bit God leaves for Himself.
The individual must grow through his or her own anguished night. The heart must break. A death to self must occur. For this breaking down is the first symbol of repentance and the cornerstone of faith. Weakness must accept strength; the fallen must be raised by the power of the sun. It is not a weak position to take to give in to God. We are already weak compared to the vastness of the eternal spirit. Our lives are brief, our skins are so easily broken and our power over the earth is limited. Admitting this lack and “lostness” is simply owning up to the truth about ourselves.
To find initial purpose and to thrive in being built by it is the strongest decision we can make. If a broken heart is the path to knowing that this is the truth then: May my heart break.…and yours too.