joy of being broken

“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares” Micah 4:8, Isaiah 2:4

“Men are terrified at suffering, at even the thought of suffering. Yet, through suffering only can one attain wisdom. Through suffering only can one attain the greatness of understanding. And without suffering it is hard to attain the kingdom of heaven”
Mr. Blue


As I walk the halls of the hospital and poke my head into patient’s rooms, into patients lives, for a moment or a collection of them it is like little lights shine into myself pointing out how I am broken. I see overwhelming courage from an elderly catholic woman who knows she is dieing but smiles and says “there are others much worse off and I have the Lord”. I wonder if my faith would be sufficient enough to say that if I were in the hospital bed. A young blind girl’s face begins to shine as I read Proverbs to her and I ponder when the last time I smiled so at the beauty of hearing God’s word. A voodoo priest exhorts the nature of his faith to me and I wonder when was the last time I vocally evangelized. A man dieing of AIDs wonders if being close to his family again is worth the pain his immanent death will cause them. As he extols his fear of love he is voicing fears I have spoken within my own soul. As another man tells me promptly to leave I wonder how many times have I rebuked someone attempting to over me a caring hand. Each visit seems a blazing light into myself pinpointing parts of my own broken nature, some of them are small lights some of them are large. No visit is without some bit of life.

Part of me wants to ignore the brokenness. It is like allowing the soda commercials and the plot of this weeks CSI Miami to distract one from the war and strife rampant in the world. I can try deluding myself into a false sense of wholeness. It involves a careful structuring of my life. I must create blinders for myself as if I were a carriage horse. It is a task of focusing solely on the road I want to look at and blinding myself to the unexpected horrors on either side. Forever I will worry about the thing that will blindside me at four pm on some idle Tuesday. When such an event happens, and each visit into a hospital room, any interaction with another individual, is a mini blindsiding, each has the potential to be a major one. This option is really not an option.

I can attempt to be like Dr. Frankenstein and patch all of these pieces back together into some form of man. I have often looked at myself as a collection of potsherds in need of an archaeologist, wondering in what ancient tomb lays the diagram of all my pieces perfectly arranged, seeking out the chemical formula for the glue that shall cause the pieces to adhere to each other without seem as if never broken. In the end this process is a vain attempt to worm myself past the angel with the sword of fire at the gates of Eden.

Where then am I to go? My thoughts turn to a statue before the BU Chapel that depicts an heavenly flock of birds soaring upwards from the granite base; it is both an ascension of doves and also swords being transformed into plowshares. The prophet’s call to turn swards into plowshares causes my soul to tremble with double images of the same field, soaked in the blood of the dying at wartime or filled with bountiful harvest in the midst of peace. It seems such straightforward pageantry from the Old Testament prophets: “make peace not war”. A few slashes of paint upon poster board and I too can join the picket line. A meaning so obvious makes this passage one easily passed over, its not one naturally cuddled deep in the heart.

For who would want to cuddle either a sword or a plowshare? These are items chill to the touch and a tax to carry; they are implements to rend and tear smooth surfaces apart. Our culture holds such a huge dichotomy between the two I think the gulf between them seems smaller then we would like it to be. I remember how ancient Roman marriage contracts speak of the consummation of the marriage as being a “plowing”, this is particularly the breaking of the virgin wife’s hymen. This is an idea of plowshares we want to leave behind, but knowing this makes me question the nature of these two tools.

A man takes up his tool, pierces the surface before him, and marks a long tear upon it. He rips apart the outer covering revealing the life giving essence within. Moisture moves forth from the tear and deep smells blaze across the man’s nostrils. Sweat beads across the man’s brow as he continues to rip again and again tearing the surface before him apart. The man is a breaker; a breaker of soil or of other men is a matter of context.

Something has broken me. The question is: was it a sword or a plowshare. In what context do I take my brokenness? Do I allow myself to be pierced by a sword or do I turn that sword into a plowshare? Do I allow my lifeblood to bleed out of the scars and into the nothingness of hell or do I allow the Holy Spirit to enter into the broken spaces and plant seeds for the harvest?

If I make what is piercing me a plowshare, if I see my brokenness as space for the Holy Spirit to enter inside of me then suddenly my brokenness is the place of my greatest joy. The inner turmoil within me, the fractures unveiled by placing my hands into the mud of the world, this is where the Holy Ghost has freedom to move. This lack of contentment the recognizing of turmoil and brokenness is the revelation of the Holy Spirit’s fire in the process of purification. It is where my spirituality my relationship with god is actually occurring.

It is in this odd way that my brokenness is what makes me useful as a minister, as a Christian, as a human being. It is what allows me to relate to the patient on the hospital bed or the elderly woman walking down the street smiling with a lilac shawl tied around her head. It is what allows me to be.