Every Tear A Waterfall

Recently I was struck by a lyric in a Coldplay song, Paradise. Now, I am usually not one to arbitrarily attribute meaning to song lyrics, but I couldn't helped but be overwhelmed by what the words, "every tear a waterfall" meant to me.


So without further ado, here are my thoughts. Even if Chris Martin were to read this and think it rubbish.


About a month ago a went to the gym to release some energy and seek oasis from some heavy thoughts and realities. Feeling overwhelmed, I stepped onto the elliptical  for a mediocre work out and selected the new Coldplay album on my ipod to be my soundtrack. After a few tracks Paradise came on. 


The song revolves around a girl. A girl who has experienced the harsh realities of life and the dreams she has of her so called 'paradise.'



"When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
and the bullets catch in her teeth
Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the night the stormy night she'll close her eyes
In the night the stormy night away she'd fly
and dreams of Para-para-paradise"


In my emo state, I immediately started to apply the lyrics to myself, and experience a little catharsis. What I was not expecting however, was a message of hidden hope. 


As I heard the line, "every tear a waterfall," I was reminded of C.S. Lewis' narrative descriptions of 'Paradise' in The Last Battle and The Great Divorce. In The Last Battle C.S. Lewis describes a Narnian Paradise as a whole new and perfect world, like the last but at the same time nothing like it. Boundless and perfect. I thought of a waterfall described in that world, or maybe I just made up that there was one but I am pretty sure there was. In the book, or in my mind, it was grand, breath taking, like no other waterfall I've ever seen. And then I recalled a line from The Great Divorce, "[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory." Putting the two thoughts together I came up with this dream...

What if this 'agony', these 'tears' I've cried were like a 'waterfall' in paradise, magnificent and full of 'glory'. What if they were not in vain, but would actually be viewed as beautiful  when I meet the Lord, not forgotten but transformed. 


I have no words to express this dream anymore, other than I don't think it is just a dream. I believe there to be truth in it. 


Oh, here is the song in case you to listen. I have no profound thoughts on the elephants.