Walking the streets of Hong Kong, one cannot help notice the number of vendors, pushing their carts along the streets in and out of traffic. Repeatedly shouting, "Sale! Sale! Specials items for sale!" It is not easy to avoid the aggressive sales pitches.
One visitor noticed a single vendor, clearly different. The vendor was quiet, staying to himself as he slowly pushed his cart along the sidewalk. The visitor stopped the man, "What are you selling?"
"Selling?" the vendor responded, "Oh, I'm not selling anything." With that, he reached into his cart and picked up two pieces of a toy that had been broken. "You see, I buy broken things. My joy comes in mending. Once, mended, it can be given away, and bring more joy."
Some of us... no, all of us... break. Maybe from lack of passion, or illusion of familiarity, or loss of childlikeness, or fatigue of spirit, or cruelty, or loss, or grief, or despair.
Yes. Life is difficult.
And as we discovered again this week, no matter how strong or safeguarded, bad things can happen to good and innocent people. Even children.
And sometimes we don't have words.
Not long ago a woman visited my house. Walked my garden with me. Her son (age 24) was killed in an accident earlier in the year. The loss still weighs heavy. None of the equations that come standard equipment in our brains seem adequate. Children are not supposed to die before their parents.
She tells me that she has any number of people (including good friends) who tell her the goal is to move on. Get over the grief.
I tell her that I didn't know that was the goal. If it is, I tell her, it's not a good one.
It's not just the woman who visited me...
I have another friend tells me she thinks she is going crazy.
Another friend who has been diagnosed with cancer, and is waiting to hear whether the news is bad or worse.
Another who is sad and lost in his marriage, and tells me life isn't any fun anymore.
And others who stand (on this night) at candle-light vigils, trying to make sense of a tragedy that simply does not.
A Rabbi visited a young couple who had lost a child. Understandably, the circumstances were very tragic. And the Rabbi waxed eloquent from the Scriptures about loss and grief and God and pain and God's will and about enduring distress. For two hours he explained the theology of pain to them. And in the end asked, "So, would you like me to explain it again?"
"No, thank you Rabbi," answered the young man, "We have already suffered enough!"
I grew up in a religious tradition that knew what to say in bad times, broken times, grieving times, wounded times. People had Bible verses for me. They were our designated "Bible verse spouters." It seemed to be a spiritual gift. These people had answers. And from what I could tell, dark beady eyes. In each case, I was told that my situation was a problem to be solved, not a mystery to be embraced.
I would hear these pronouncements, and feel at the very least, dense, or, more likely, void of faith, because apparently I didn't "get it."
Truth is, there were still times I felt lost, lonely, wounded, hurting, angry, tired or disillusioned. And for some reason, I couldn't make the formula work. These "answers" did not give me peace. They just made me want to hit someone.
Reminds me of a cartoon. Two men walking to the top of a sacred mountain to talk with a great guru.
"Life is like a river," says the guru.
"You've got to be kidding," say the men. They begin to choke the guru.
"Okay, okay," says the guru. "Life is not like a river."
A couple anticipated attending the opening of a new museum exhibit. At the last moment, their childcare plans fell through. They were left with the only option of taking their young daughter, seven years old, with them. They expected that the event would be tedious for the girl, but hoped she would not be a drain on their evening.
The exhibit was large and varied. One room of water color paintings, another of pen and ink sketches. In another great bronze sculpting. In another, modern art in oil. And in another, small blown glass figurines. Exquisite. Gossamer.
The little girl spent the evening mesmerized.
On the way home, the parents said to their daughter, "We're sorry we took you to such a long adult event. But we're proud of the way you behaved. And we want to thank you. Did you enjoy any of the evening."
The girl paused, and then told them, "All night, I wanted to touch the fragile things."
The little ones understand.
That my wholeness is, in fact, a hidden wholeness, and it comes only as I embrace my brokenness. My messiness. My confusion.
That my identity, my value, my worth, is not predicated on answers or resolutions or tidiness. My identity, my value, my worth, comes from Grace.
Grace is that moment of certainty when I know that if I never did one more seminar, or wrote one more book, or attended one more meeting, it would be okay.
Mark Twain was once asked, "Do you believe in child baptism?"
"Believe in it," he responded. "Hell, I've seen it."
Grace.
At one time I believed in it.
But now, I have seen it.
Here's the deal: Grace is just not where I expected to find it. Grace is found where God is found, in the pressure points of life. And when I understand this, I am free to surrender.
I am free to give up my need for control and answers.
I am free to own my life. This life. Not some tidy life.
I am free to let my life heal, not by denying the pain, but by acknowledging it, and in fact, by keeping my heart open.
I am free to see that the mending does not eliminate the cracks, but allows me to embrace them.
When I come in that door, I'm covered with blood sometimes, and they hug me. They love me, they take care of me, they treat me as a real human being. And then they feed me, and they massage me, and they give me adjustments. These are my people. This is my place. This is where I come to be with God. --A New York firefighter (about the volunteers who worked tirelessly in St. Paul's chapel--St. Paul's is the place where firefighters and rescue workers ate and slept in the days and weeks that followed the 9/11 tragedy at the World Trade Center)
So. What did I tell the woman who talked with me about her son's death?
I couldn't improve on a story I heard about Rear Admiral Thornton Miller Chief. He was the Chaplain at Normandy in WWII. Someone asked him, "Up and down the beach, with the shells going everywhere, why did you do that?"
"Because I'm a minister."
"But didn't you ask if they were Catholic or Protestant or Jew?"
"If you're a minister, the only question you ask is, 'Can I help you?'"
