“STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES”
(revision of a past reflection)
Thirty-one years ago, while watching a news program, I was
shocked and saddened to learn of a car accident on a Connecticut
Interstate. The tragedy resulted
in the death of a colleague and his two-year-old child; his pregnant wife Paula
survived and six months later gave birth to a healthy baby. Along with a new
mother’s joy and love, Paula grieved profoundly. I can only imagine her
painful time of loss, emptiness, disillusionment, rage, loneliness, hopelessness,
bitterness, helplessness, and confusion as she journeyed on her unchosen, dark
road.
I am sure that many of us gathered here this evening at one time or another
experienced acute loss and grief caused by circumstances beyond our control.
Possibly someone dear to you has died and left a gnawing void in your life;
perhaps you have been betrayed by someone trusted and loved; maybe an irresponsible
daughter, son or parent has manipulated or rejected your affection; possibly
you have been unjustly fired from a job or forced into an unwanted retirement;
perhaps you have received alarming medical information; maybe you have
been subjected to continuous oppression or ridicule for being gay or whatever.
Frightening intrusions and losses visit and wound many of us! We respond
frequently, as did Paula, with mixed and awful emotions that paralyze our
lives.
During an early 1990s conversation with Paula (video recorded for a biomedical
ethics course I was teaching), I asked whether she recalled a time when
her life again seemed to have possibilities other than an overwhelming
sense of embittered gloom. Listen to her own words from that interview:
“It was kind of a small moment. I had moved back with my parents
(because they told me to), and in the initial stages it didn’t occur
to me to refute that or to make a different decision; whatever anyone told
me to do, I did. I came back to Connecticut for a visit and went to my
gynecologist; he checked me because I was still in the middle of a pregnancy.
He said to me, when I requested that he take all my files and send them
to my doctor in Massachusetts, ‘Why don’t I just send copies
and then if you choose to come back, I’11 have your records still
here.’ It was that one small comment that I turned over in my mind
all that evening; he just had given me the suggestion ‘IF I CHOOSE,’ and
that’s when it occurred to me that it would be up to me. Then I started
to read stories and to really get into the lives of people who had overcome
any kind of tragedy (it didn’t have to be a death), and I saw a common
theme in them: it was never that they had overcome the circumstances per
se; it was themselves that they had had the victory over. They had believed
that they could rise above it, and it was a will to do it that was the
common victory, and I started to really feed on that… One comment
I read was that ‘life breaks everybody at some point, but that some
can become strong at the broken places.’ That one insight led me
to really look at a lot of lives, not only lives that had an obvious tragedy,
and to realize that life does break everybody at some point . .... Still
and all, like others, I’d made the decision to heal - which I feel
is always a choice; it doesn’t happen to people; you decide to heal
....”
Reports on various healings of the spirit and cures of the body
are found in both the Bible and elsewhere. Paula’s healing is about a mending
of the spirit; in tonight’s reading from Mark’s Gospel we hear
a physical transformation. We need not become bogged down in
a discussion of whether this biblical story actually happened or is purely
figurative.
Our focus with both Paula and Mark is precisely this: what
do such accounts mean for us? What does the Creator say to us through such
testimonials?
As to their significance for us, consider how many ills of our
world are brought about by the willing deafness of those who will
not
hear new
information, cries of injustice - indeed, the Word of God itself.
Those who cannot, or will not, hear God’s Word cling at best to half truths
and ignorant notions; they deafen themselves to unfairness suffered by
others; they tune out others; they fashion a spirituality that may have
the forms of Christianity, but little of its substance. Furthermore, in
the Gospel story the man was also cured of not being able to speak; spiritual speech barriers call for the afflicted to be silent, not to allow God’s
Word to flow through them unambiguously. Often selfishly preoccupied, they
choose to be voiceless - silenced by cowardice, caution, and prejudice.
Healed, the man’s heart was softened, his mind was opened, and his
tongue released to speak plainly. Is this not what God wants of you and
of me – for us to be free and open to hear, speak, and be doers of
the Word?
Back to Paula: her chosen road to healing began in the small
moment of a physician’s suggestion. She could have decided to focus on her
pain and remain entombed indefinitely. Instead, she chose to respond to
a “small moment” provided by a graceful healer and then walk
the difficult path from the darkness of a tomb toward the light
of Resurrection.
You and I will have our sorrows, afflictions, anguishes, heartaches,
and tragedies. At such times we might seem to travel roads
of sadness, apparently going nowhere; life will appear dark and imprisoning,
and our
vision will be clouded. However, we may be encouraged by Paula
and biblical wisdom that there will be perceptible, small moments providing
us with
graceful opportunities to choose, not merely to endure, but
to move toward healing. We may be moved toward choosing a passage toward
Light by advice
from a doctor, a meal with a beloved friend, something read,
a chance conversation, words heard anew from a caring voice, or indeed,
by God’s gently
nudging Spirit.
Moreover, we might find ourselves, similar to Paula’s doctor,
unintentionally ministering to someone with our own supportive insights.
Or, not unlike
Jesus in the Gospel reading, by our affection we might become
a transforming agent of someone who has neither heard sufficiently nor
confirmed straightforwardly
the Good News of Christ.
At this very hour in this church all is not well with everyone present.
Some of us carry varying degrees of grief in response to unwelcome circumstances
beyond our control. Some of us may find it difficult to be open in heart
and mind. Some of us may be reluctant to be doers, to speak up when we
encounter true wrongdoing. However, this Eucharistic Breaking of the Bread
can be one of those perceptible, small moments wherein we discover strength
and vision to choose not merely to survive the day, but to heal - however
slowly, however scarred we might remain. Additionally, our very individual
presence, perhaps in a word or a smile, with a hand or a hug, even our
sharing of bread and wine in the name of Christ, might be an occasion of
ministry, such that some may choose to begin, or continue the journey toward,
their own resurrected spirit, more hopeful, with a clearer vision of what
might yet be, and just a bit stronger at their broken places.
+
Tonight’s Reading from Mark
Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of
Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They
brought
to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and
they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private,
away from the
crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched
his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that
is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue
was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no
one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He
has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to
speak."