Broken Glass
October 13, 2008
This isn't where I expected to be. My
version of myself, my life didn't have this.
Ram Dass (after his stroke)
Hold your heart in all tenderness.
Something healing this way comes. Jen
Lemen
You must have a place to which you can go
in your heart, your mind, or your house,
almost every day, where you do not owe anyone
and where no one owes you--a place that
simply allows for the blossoming of something
new and promising. Joseph
Campbell
You never know what you're going to
encounter in route. (So, now) I don't miss
a thing. I
touch everything. Andy Merrifield
Toward the end of Leonard Bernstein's musical
work entitled Mass, there is a scene in
which the priest is richly dressed in
magnificent vestments. He is lifted up by
the crowd. He is carrying a splendid glass
chalice
in his hands. Suddenly the human pyramid
collapses and the priest comes tumbling
down.
The priest's vestments are ripped off and the glass chalice falls to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces.
As the priest walks slowly through the debris of his former glory, barefoot and wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, he hears children's voices singing off stage, Laude. Laude. Laude. Praise! Praise! Praise!
His eyes, transformed by God's grace, suddenly notice the broken chalice. He looks at it for a long, long time. And then, haltingly he says, "I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly."
Things do not always go the way we plan. Not that we don't try. Somehow, well made plans make us feel better. More presentable. Even acceptable. (Including my plans for this Sabbath Moment, for which I had prepared another subject altogether.)
But life changes.
Life turns left.
Things--plans, dreams, relationships, can break.
Shatter.
And hearts can be broken.
I spent some time with a group of people weighed down by broken things. They invited me to sit, to listen, and if I had any, to offer some insight.
I wanted to say all the right things.
I wanted, in effect, to fix it.
I wanted to put the chalice back together.
But since when are tidiness and the presence of the sacred one in the same?
In the the end, I realized that I could only invite them to the epiphany of the priest in Bernstein's Mass. That if we have eyes to see, there are no unsacred moments. And that God is alive and well in all things.
Even in the broken glass.
Or, in the words of Van Morrison, "Whenever God shines His light."
It's not about time. It's not about reliability and predictability. Commitment is about depth. It's about effort. It's about passion. It's about wanting to be in a certain place, and not somewhere else--commitment is best measured not by the time one is willing to give up but, more accurately, by the energy one wants to put in, by how present one is. Eugene O'Kelly
The priest's vestments are ripped off and the glass chalice falls to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces.
As the priest walks slowly through the debris of his former glory, barefoot and wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, he hears children's voices singing off stage, Laude. Laude. Laude. Praise! Praise! Praise!
His eyes, transformed by God's grace, suddenly notice the broken chalice. He looks at it for a long, long time. And then, haltingly he says, "I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly."
Things do not always go the way we plan. Not that we don't try. Somehow, well made plans make us feel better. More presentable. Even acceptable. (Including my plans for this Sabbath Moment, for which I had prepared another subject altogether.)
But life changes.
Life turns left.
Things--plans, dreams, relationships, can break.
Shatter.
And hearts can be broken.
I spent some time with a group of people weighed down by broken things. They invited me to sit, to listen, and if I had any, to offer some insight.
I wanted to say all the right things.
I wanted, in effect, to fix it.
I wanted to put the chalice back together.
But since when are tidiness and the presence of the sacred one in the same?
In the the end, I realized that I could only invite them to the epiphany of the priest in Bernstein's Mass. That if we have eyes to see, there are no unsacred moments. And that God is alive and well in all things.
Even in the broken glass.
Or, in the words of Van Morrison, "Whenever God shines His light."
It's not about time. It's not about reliability and predictability. Commitment is about depth. It's about effort. It's about passion. It's about wanting to be in a certain place, and not somewhere else--commitment is best measured not by the time one is willing to give up but, more accurately, by the energy one wants to put in, by how present one is. Eugene O'Kelly
Poems / Prayers
At the entrance,
my bare feet on the dirt floor,
Here, gusts of heat;
at my back, white clouds.
I stare and stare.
It seems I was called for this:
To glorify things just because they are.
"Blacksmith Shop" Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass
Lord, it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day. What had been done has been done;
What has not been done has not been done; let it be.
The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray. Amen.
-New Zealand Prayer Book
Peace,
Terry Hershey
