“For a person to become a Christian, one must have a poetic soul. A Christian, albeit only when he/she loves, is a poet and lives amid poetry. Poetic hearts embrace love and sense it deeply.”
- St Porphyrios, Wounded by Love, 218
Reflection:
To have a poetic heart means to see a deeper meaning than what meets the eye. We begin to recognize the value of everything around us, acknowledge the majesty of God’s creation.
We are able to see our lives in context, each of our decisions, stresses, and tasks in their proper place before God and within His creation - within His love, helping us not become overwhelmed with our circumstances.
The poetic (Orthodox Christian) heart, sees more to the human being than their externals. A poetic heart sees more to the person than one or two impressions, their opinions, or their comments. A poetic heart sees a person for the inner disposition of their soul, always within the context of the potential to grow - with the help of a life in Christ.
Poetic hearts do not get stuck in the judgments or draw conclusions of the external appearances, surface level imperfections, or even day-to-day mistakes of a person. A poetic heart is “swift to hear, slow to speak.”(1)
St Porphyrios suggests that one must have a poetic heart to be Christian, because it is this kind of heart when rooted in Christ that exhibits: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”(2) When we have a poetic heart, we become more Christ-like, we see the beauty, as well as potential-beauty, in everything and everyone.
With a poetic heart, we regain the beauty “on earth, as it is in heaven.”(3)
