Blessings in the Cracks of our Lives
Psalms
143:1, 5-6; 147:1-3 GNT;
When we lived in Denton, Texas, we would go out into the yard
during the dry heat of summer to find the black clay ground riddled with a
spiderweb-like system of wide cracks a half-inch or so wide. And then, when we would get a rain, the
rainwater would fill those thirsty cracks, like a dry sponge soaking up
dishwater, and after awhile the ground would be uniformly smooth again.
It’s interesting that the psalmist draws on the dry, cracked
ground metaphor when he says to God, “I lift up my hands to you in prayer; like
dry ground my soul is thirsty for you . . .” (143:6). Sometimes our hearts or our lives can feel
broken or cracked. The pressures and
sorrows and losses of life just get to be too much for us, and the result is a
broken heart or a feeling that our life is broken. We have heard the statement by someone who
has suffered a great loss, “I am a broken man.”
I saw an article in USA Today last week on “broken heart
syndrome.”2 “A new Cleveland
Clinic study . . . discovered the number of cases of ‘broken heart syndrome,’
or stress cardiomyopathy, [has] doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic. . .
Stress cardiomyopathy occurs in response to physical or emotional distress and
causes dysfunction or failure in the heart muscle. It’s been associated with severe emotional
stress, but it could be any type of stress like breakups, loss of a loved one,
a heated altercation with a family member or severe depression.”
Well, we may not have suffered broken heart syndrome,
technically and medically speaking, but most of us at some point in our lives
have been broken-hearted or felt that our life was cracked and near the
breaking point.
Mark Nepo talks a lot about being cracked or broken in his
book The One Life You’re Given. He
reminds us that to be human inevitably means you can expect times of
brokenness. There is no way around
it. If we live long enough, all of us
will experience brokenness in some form or fashion, and some more than
others. To be human by its very nature
means you will eventually be broken.
But the positive side of being cracked or broken is that the
cracks in our hearts and lives provide open space for the flow of divine
grace. We are most receptive to, most
open to the Sacred and to divine grace when life leaves us cracked and
broken.
To use another metaphor, cracks permit the water of life to
flow into our lives, bringing healing and wholeness. In Psalm 147 the psalmist testifies, “God
heals the broken-hearted;” couldn’t we say the cracked of heart? The one whose heart has been cracked open by
the troubles of life?
Cracks in our lives can make space for some otherwise hidden
beauty of life to be revealed. When we
take the time and go to the trouble of peering through the cracks of our broken
life, we may see some of life’s beautiful blessings that otherwise we would
have been blind to. I may say more about
this during next week’s service.
Cracks permit the light of life to shine through, just like
rays of the morning sunlight come streaming through the cracks between the
planks of a garden shed. It is when our
lives feel cracked that we are most eager for and receptive to the spiritual
light of truth and wisdom.
Sometimes after people have lived through very trying life
experiences – a life-threatening or prolonged illness, loss of a loved one,
recovery from some serious accident, and so on – they are able to relate their
life-breaking experience in the form of a spiritual memoir which holds much
truth, comfort, and encouragement for others. Two weeks ago we focused on
Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. We
might also think of Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night. But the possibilities are many and
varied.
In one of my favorite lines from the poetry of Emily
Dickinson she observes, “The soul should always stand ajar.”3 Now, Emily was not talking about the soul
being cracked or broken per se. But she
was saying we need to keep our soul or heart cracked open a bit, giving room
for God or Heaven to enter in. Sometimes
we can do that willingly. And at other
times, circumstances of life may do that for us.
Yes, being human means that sooner or later life will leave
us feeling cracked or broken. It is
inevitable. But when it does, may we have the presence of mind to look through
the cracks for the blessings of grace, beauty, and the light of truth that
might be present there. May it be
so. Amen.
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