TABLET

Once upon a time there was a tablet, a story of the heart.

Today the word ‘tablet’ conjures images of little white pills or electronic devices rectangular in shape. However in ancient Mesopotamia the liver and the heavens were considered the ‘tablets of the gods’. One looked to the sky to decipher messages from the divine, and that is one of the primary reasons why astronomy was so important. One also ‘read’ the liver or entrails of a sacrificed animal for the same reason.* All this information would be recorded on clay tablets, of which we have spoken before.**

There is something alluring about the clay tablet that keeps calling me back; a wet block inscribed with the help of a reed stylus, baked in a kiln to preserve it for millenia. Whether astronomical data, commercial inventories, legal contracts or details of a maiden’s dowry, all that mattered was inscribed on a clay tablet. As we were approaching the new year an ancient text came to mind that plays on this imagery.*** What if instead of a clay tablet it is the human heart, and what if instead of an ancient list of spices, it is a story? The text talks about a story being inscribed on the heart of each person.

In our everyday language we use phrases that allude to this: ‘follow your heart’, ‘listen to your heart’, ‘what does your heart tell you?’. Of course phrases like this are often interpreted as a sentimental rendition based on current feelings and nothing more. However in those same phrases, if we go beyond the superficial layer of fleeting feelings, it is possible to detect some of the deeper assumptions: that there is something within each of us, located in our hearts (not our big toes), that whatever it is, it is worth paying attention to, and most importantly, the assumption that it is vital to live out what is on one’s heart.

This ancient text assumes that there is a story worth telling, a story so important it cannot be written on clay tablets. A clay tablet can be misplaced, become covered in dust, buried in distant sands and forgotten in time. No, this story is so precious it is written on that which is priceless, on that which is of infinite worth: the human heart. What is this story? you may wonder.

It is the story of Life. I capitalise it because it is life not as breathing in and out, ticking boxes nor climbing ladders. The author contrasts two kinds of stories, stories of death and stories of life. What is the difference? One would assume that stories that lead to death are bad. Not so. Even good stories can lead to death. How so? In this context, the stories that lead to death are not bad, not at all. The author says that there were scripts lived in the past that were wonderful, glorious even, but that it cannot compare to what he is talking about now. So if past stories were admittedly glorious, how could they lead to death? The answer is simple: because they are outdated, outlived, outgrown. They are the training wheels that were necessary, but were never meant to be used lifelong. According to the author, the story to be written on human hearts far exceeds any previous ‘tablets’, scripts or stories. Those stories of the past, glorious as they were, were written on stone. This, however, is a story of the heart. Each person as a story, a story that lives, breathes, and moves. A story that is alive. This story is about moving from black and white to colour, mono to surround, 2D to 3D. It is the story of opening one’s heart to the Beyond and in doing so, becoming fully alive.

What if we imagined that every clay tablet baked in ancient kilns served to tell us this very story, the story of the heart? The story of you and me, of who we are, of who we can become as we shed skins and scripts and choose stories of Life? What if we imagined that all the pens and papers and scripts and calligraphy of the world are all speaking of the deeper story to be written on our hearts? As we move into this new year of the unknown, what scripts are we living? What story is being written on our heart? Are there scripts that were wonderful, but that we find we have simply outgrown? This year, what is the story we want inscribed on our hearts? What is the story you want to live?

*Known as hepatoscopy or extispicy

**E.g. Window

***This article is inspired by 2 Cor. 3:2-3

(c) Belinda É. Samari