Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber, although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion, washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No living being is without interior liquid motion.”
And then Brian Doyle writes, “We all churn inside. So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment.” *
Our hearts beat approximately 2 billion times over a lifetime. With each beat, a churning. And I suppose for many of us, with the churning comes a burning question: Is there a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity—restore things like peace, love, and life?
The resurrection of Christ gives us an answer. The resurrection is God’s ultimate act to make sure every churning thing in creation gets returned to God’s life-giving, love-flowing dream. Animated by the Spirit of God breathing into our hearts in motion, we learn to live into this greatest hope, this supreme act of love, this definitive word spoken against injustice and the terrible things human beings do to each other.
Like the first disciples—paralyzed by fear, self-quarantined, traumatized, barricaded behind a dead-bolted door in a small, dimly lit room—resurrection still happens with the smell of death in the air.
It occurs when we feel isolated and afraid.
It takes place in confusion and doubt and despair and grief and when seeking healing from violence and trauma.
It rises when we become aware of being loved by a great love, which, for reasons we don’t quite understand, will not let us go.
This divine, decisive, greater-than-ourselves power still shows up in eternally churning hearts, where each day, moment, and hour, you and I hold so much.
Much love,
Pastor Gregg
*Brian Doyle and David James Duncan, One Long River of Song.
