Broken Open

Let's talk today about brokenness, and about beginning to mend.

First, a question: when was the last time you felt safe - really safe? When's the last time you woke up and lay, relaxed and comfortable, looking forward to the day ahead?

Or are you always on edge, worried and uneasy? Having trouble sleeping? Feeling trapped and anxious?

Of course you are. Let me tell you why you're feeling that way.

You have been broken.

You, me, all of us - our lives have all been broken.

Think of how you felt last New Year's Eve. You may not even have thought about it, but for most of us, we assumed the shape the year ahead would take. Even if you were facing loss or struggling with difficult problems, they had a name; you could picture what was ahead, even dimly.

None of us, not one, could have pictured the ways our lives would be transformed in the last nine months. For some of us, the blows of these last months have been devastating: loss of homes and livelihood, the death of loved ones, broken health and futures. Even for those of us fortunate enough to weather the storm, the changes have been enormous. The life we took for granted before is gone.

We've lost the joy of hugging friends and gathering in groups, lost the easy, thoughtless intimacy of sharing space and simply breathing and singing and laughing together. We've been shaken to the core by the anguish of revelations of brutality, by demands for justice, by violence in the streets. We've watched the skies turn red with distant fires; we've felt the country we knew sliding into chaos. The pillars that hold up our world have been battered; our very foundations seem to be crumbling. Life doesn't feel safe anymore.

We're all trying figure out, you see, how to walk on this shaky ground. How to walk with fear and still, too, live and find a little joy. We're broken pieces that haven't begun to mend - there's been no time to sit down and try to fit our hearts back together.

But here's something we need to understand: we haven't just been broken, we have been broken open.

Have you ever seen an acorn that's starting to sprout? It cracks open, breaks so the seed inside can escape. Before, it was protected and safe - but that's not what an acorn is for.

If you stop to look, I'm sure you can see ways you've grown these past months, ways you've stepped out of your old, familiar ways of thinking.

I sure can. For one thing, I'm grateful for so many things I took for granted before. Life feels much more precious to me - and I sense I'm getting stronger, and my heart is learning to open a little bit. My faith has had to stand in the storm and ask hard questions. And those calls for racial justice have pushed me to look at my own assumptions. I've learned so much.

If you think about it, we've all been pushed to change. We've had to step out of our old, safe ways and do things we would never, ever have done before! We're exploring new ways to gather and worship and new ways to teach our children. Artists are creating amazing works online, and you can tour museums on the other side of the world. In so many ways, we're finding our way through this darkness. Humans are, deep down, unquenchable.

And we've been pushed to really grow as a country. The crises we're facing have broken open the weak places in our nation, exposing them for us all to see, demanding they be addressed. Changes in laws that have struggled to be heard are now clearly on the table as never before.

The historians and political experts are saying that this is a "plastic time" - one of those rare times in history when a crisis can push huge changes that would never have been possible otherwise. Even when we know we need to change, that shell of our old ways of doing things can be pretty tough to break. But when a real crisis shakes our very foundations, those cracks let us find our way into new possibilities.

Please understand that I am not trying to minimize the grief and loss so many have faced and will face. I'm not saying it's for the best or was meant to be. But maybe, just maybe, this is an opportunity. That gives me hope.

One last thought. Let's try be good to ourselves, and to each other. Remember that you're wounded. Put some balm on those cracked places - but don't be too quick to try to glue yourself into the person you were before. Look at how you're growing.

And the next time you see some guy who's yelling and angry, remember, he's scared and hurting, too. Listen to the feelings under the words, and if you can, give him a little slack.

So when you start to despair, stop and look around for those places we're growing. You'll find them.

I promise!