My students and I read the short essay “Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle last week. The first time I read it (Oct. 2017), it put me under the pile. Doyle had died just months before I read it, and Amy had passed away a year prior. The irony and profound message were not lost on me. This time, the lesson for me was a bit different.

The essay begins with Doyle talking about Hummingbirds and hummingbird hearts.

He’s not really talking about the hummingbird but using it as a metaphor for a much closer-to-home issue. It’s not until near the end of the essay that the reader realizes Doyle is talking about the human heart.

Speaking of the hummingbird, Doyle states, “They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor…their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be.” (emphasis mine)

Later in the essay, Doyle switches to the heart of the majestic blue whale, the largest animal to live on the third rock from the sun. He admits that we know “nearly nothing” about this magnificent creature once it finishes puberty. “But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.” (emphasis mine)

Taking a moment to run through a list of animal heart types, Doyle then surprises the reader with the third profundity: “No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.” (emphasis mine)

I found myself churning in the middle of a room full of 6th-grade students. I was gasping for air, desperately trying to stamp down the flood of emotion threatening to pour out of me…having lost my “pair”…having reached torpor.

What happens to the Christian who is exhausted from “doing too much for the kingdom” and is giving more than they have to give? What about the teacher who stays up late to grade papers so his students can get their essays back within a day or two? Or the single parent of three, desperately trying to keep all schedules straight, deliver kids to the right place at the right time, go grocery shopping and clothes shopping, pay bills, and fill out taxes let alone keep tabs on each of the delicate hearts left solely to him to shepherd? Torpor? Yes, utter exhaustion, sometimes maybe even “come[ing] close to death.”

This lonely father of three hit Torpor many months ago. The last seven months being the darkest months to date. Standing in that room, with 6th graders staring at me, having heard the hitch in my voice, I realized that God – and a few godly friends – have been at work to warm my heart so that I can once again “soon find that which is sweet.” I pray my heart doesn’t completely grow cold and that I don’t settle for Spenda when God’s sweet nectar is within reach.