Open Hands, Leaky Hearts, Broken Lives . . . In Search of Good News

June 19, 2005

Last week I was emphatic: I am not broken.  You can make me break a pot, but that doesn’t mean I’m broken.  I was being a bit facetious, I’ve been broken in the past and I know you don’t ever fully recover; but I was only being a bit facetious, part of me believed my words: what you know in your head you don’t always know in your heart.

It wasn’t until forced to sit in a dark chapel for an hour with only candles lighting my path that I realized how tired and broken I really am.  It wasn’t until tears leaked out for no reason I could comprehend that I realized how fast I’ve been running away from the broken spots in my life and from a world that feels too broken to be healed.

I’ve been wrestling with this Genesis passage that I have to preach next week and it is starting to sink in.  I know for authentic preaching you have to live in the text, but I’ve been very careful not to live in this text – I dislike it that much.  But I was sitting in the chapel tonight, exhausted from a week full of conference and traveling and life, and I realized that I want to know why. 

Why does God test us?  Why does God orchestrate situations in which people get abused?  Why do we blindly follow?   Why is it so hard to live in paradox?  Why are there broken hearts, broken bodies and broken lives?  Why does God not heal our broken world?  Why do countries put up walls to keep people out and people in?  Why do we fight and still do nothing about genocide?  Why are we so afraid of one another?  Why?

I sat with my hands open in my lap and realized how hard it is to live an open life and an open faith.  It was hard to keep my hands open for that long – I am so quick to close them, to fold them, to hide them under my arms.  It is just as hard for me to keep my life open. 

I am an equal opportunity grasper.  I grasp the things that hurt and can’t seem to let them go.  I grasp the things that are wonderful and life-giving and squeeze the life out of them for fear they might float away.  And if I can’t stay open to things in my own life that hurt or bring deep joy, how will I ever be able to stay open to you and your life, your questions and your opinions, your feelings?  And if we can’t stay open to one another then how can we expect our countries to stay open? 

There is so much to hurt us in this world and so little that seems to bring true joy.  Is it any wonder we build walls to keep in what we love and keep out what could hurt us out?

I want to know where the good news is: in the passage I’m stuck in, in this world.  They say that scar tissue is the strongest skin, and I think they mean it to make you feel better: if you’ve been cut – you’re stronger for it.  But somehow I doubt Isaac would have found much comfort or truth in that.  And I know from experience that like a clay pot, once you are broken, you cannot go back together completely ever again, and you are far more fragile and likely to break with the slightest bump.

Maybe in being broken we are not only hurt, but opened a little bit more to the world.  Maybe it is not in the strength of scar tissue that we can find good news, but the in space between our pieces, which no longer fit snugly together, but rather allows us to finally see outside of ourselves.  We are not alone in our brokenness.  Maybe if we could realize this, as individuals, as nations, we would not be so scared of one another – how scary can a bunch pieces really be?

Posted in spirituality by Sarah