LOVED BY A BROKEN HEART

Every adult I know has one. I know no one who does not have a heart peppered with scars. Hearts who love are hearts that are broken—by death, disappointment, divorce, betrayal, misunderstanding, denied dreams.  Everyone who has loved has felt deep wounds in the losses that are part of our changing lives.

So, this means that what we have to give each other is love by a broken heart. We are imperfect and scarred. Parts of our heart are not working as generously as other parts. Some of what we have to give is distorted by wounds that have not yet healed. We dare to give love to each other knowing that we do not have our whole heart engaged. The scars on our hearts often hide pain that still lies below the surface and so we give love tinged with pain.

And we give this broken, scarred love to others who have similar wounds. We are all seeking to be loved with a purity that will fill us up and most of the time others do not have that capacity. Their wounds caution them to hold back, to not give it all, as they try to love without opening themselves to another heart-break. So, we are all long for love without limits from hearts that are limited by scars.

So, since we all are wounded and scarred, maybe we can learn to receive the love that is given from courageous souls who know what it means to be broken. And maybe knowing this can ignite our courage to dare to love another, knowing that we too will disappoint even as we have been disappointed.  And knowing this, maybe rather than judging the love of another, we can learn to cherish it , as broken as it is, as a life-giving gift.

IN MEMORIAM

The phone call came at dawn this morning. "Kay passed away early this morning." Her husband Dave shared the news of my sister's death. He had written a couple of days ago that they were awaiting the moment when she will be "taken by the elemental forces of the universe to rejoin her Creator and the countless others who preceded her and will welcome her company."

I sit quietly in my study this afternoon remembering my life with her and all of my remaining siblings. There had been five of us. Kay had been the matriarch of our clan since my mother died seven years ago.Kay was a woman who was committed to life-giving love. She welcomed all into her family. She went out of her way to walk with those whom society had pushed to the margins. She embodied her mother's commitment to compassion and her daddy's gentle spirit.

Kay was a strong and determined woman who knew that love, to exist in a world where there is deep suffering, had to be tough. She knew that love not only blessed your heart, but also broke your heart. She knew that at it's heart, love is continuing to show up and to pay attention to the other.

Kay's long battle with ovarian cancer is over. My niece said she heard an owl's call early this morning. In Native American folk lore, the owl represents wisdom and helpfulness. The call also represents the spirit of one who has died. Kay's family included Native Americans, Guatemalans and Vietnamese. Her compassionate wisdom will strengthen my heart and use my tears to nurture a loving spirit. May God rest her soul.

LIGHT INSIDE

He was afraid of the dark. He cried and so his parents put a night light in his room.  With the warm glow of a few watts, he was comforted and went to sleep. From early childhood, we believe that if there is light coming into us,we will be OK. We somehow think that our sense of well-being comes from outside ourselves.

But Barbara Brown Taylor, in a recent article in the Christian Century, tells of a man who helped her see a deeper truth. In his book, And There Was Light, Jacques Lusseyran, a blind French resistance fighter during WWII, wrote about going blind as a child. Only 10 days after he went blind, he made a discovery that influenced the rest of his life. "I had completely lost the sight of my eyes; I could not see the light of the world anymore. Yet the light was still there. . . . The source of light is not in the outer world. We believe that is is only because of a common delusion. The light dwells where life also dwells: within ourselves." (The Christian Century, April 2, 2014)

"The light dwells where life also dwells: within ourselves." I sometimes lament how much time I have spent in my life expecting light to come from the outside of myself. How much time I have wasted waiting for someone else to affirm my worth? How many insights I have missed because I looked for others to give me answers to  my life's issues? How much energy have I spent seeking clarity from the lights that flash unrelentingly from culture's values?

Light dwells where life exists. And life exists within each of us. Life, in its glory and pain, in its delight and hurt, in it tenderness and roughness, plays itself out within our hearts and souls. If we take time to pay attention to that life, to the heartbeat of our soul, the light that illumines us will not go out when it get's dark around us. 

#FWBL

There is a new TV show that has piqued my interest. It is #FWBL. It stands for Friends with Better Lives.  It is a comedy that centers around six friends who each think the other has a better life. This new show is not really new at all--it is simply a recurring show that plagues human life. We call it envy.

Envy is a discontentment that we feel when we look at others lives or possessions and desire to have what they have. It is driven by our perception of other's lives as having qualities that we find lacking in our own lives. We measure our reality according to our perception of the reality of another and focus on what we lack compared to the other. Envy focuses on only one part of who the other fully is. 

In the history of the church, this is one of the seven deadly sins. That is, it is something that alienates us from God and neighbor.  Ancient church theologian Thomas Acquinas says that envy is the opposite of charity. "Charity rejoices in our neighbor's good, while envy grieves over it." Charity, or love is that which is of God and when we love, we connect with the holy one. To look at what another has and to wish you had it instead of their having it is to separate yourself from those bonding experiences that love helps create.

And, it often results in blinding us to the gifts of life that we do have. Our perception of others lives is limited to what we can see and what we assume is happening. Our experience of our own lives is more complex and confusing and therefore may look like it not as good.  But, the reality is that most people live confusing and conflicted lives.  Most people are a jumble of delight and pain, joy and suffering.  Most people have self-doubt and deep fear and anxiety that tends to rob them of their happiness and contentment.

When we see others in a more realistic life, we can live with more empathy. We can see that, while they have somethings that we might wish we have, they also live with the same frustrations and fears that often plague our lives.  When we see that, love, compassion, charity are more likely to be our response. When that happens, we discover the presence of God who is loving connection.

ANTICIPATORY GRIEF

She said to me, "He has been grieving all through her illness. It won't be as hard for him when she dies, will it?" Sometimes we want this to be true. When someone is diagnosed with a terminal disease and has a long period of suffering on the journey of death, we want to believe that when they die, part of the grieving will be over.

But, my experience and observation teaches me that anticipation of endings and endings themselves are two different losses and therefore require distinct and individual grieving. When someone is diagnosed and is sick, the loss is significant. The person has lost their sense of vulnerability and sense of a future. They are aware that there are limits to their life. The relationship moves from mutuality to one of care giving and dependency. Everyone in the family has to learn to live in the absence of the way things used to be. They grieve the loss of the way relationships were lived.

But, when someone dies, the whole picture changes. The presence of a person, even when they are ill, is still a presence on which everyone depends. Everyone develops ways of living and caring which reflect the love and compassion they feel for each other. But, when that person dies, each person has to learn to live in the absence of their presence. There is a finality to the relationship which was not fully appreciated before the death.

So, people who have had significant losses after a long illness still have to grieve the full impact of the ending of a person's life. Therefore, don't try to discount their feelings because someone they love was ill for a long time. The extended time of care-giving and grieving the previous losses only means that the person begins this grieving process more exhausted than they would have otherwise.  Grief is particular and individual. We grieve loss whenever their are significant changes. Be patient with each other.