Abalone sky peels layers of a bruised heart and children wait hungry for food that fills bellies. And me, I'm starved for soul food- the manna that nourishes spirit, hollowing and hallowing self. Restoration.
Droplets swell with bowed limb, and heart swells with ache for a broken world. A broken world that oozes radiation and fractures relentless- leaving all speechless- because there are no words that can mend all this brokenness.
And how can I rejoice in all this beauty abundant, alive, breathing- when there is so much hurt? So much sadness. Somehow it all seems wrong, so unfair that I know not the pain.
Eggs burn in the house, and I can't tear myself away. I'm thinking of being broken and what it all means and WHY??
Truths are made manifest all in their own time, and that time is different for all souls. At Mass last week, I learned the truth of brokenness. During the consecration, the priest said the words I have heard and prayed thousands of times before:
"And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." (Luke22:19)
Jesus broke the bread. Before he gave His body, gave himself to us, He was broken. Jesus is made whole through His brokenness. Jesus heals a fractured humanity through his brokenness made whole.
"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf."
(1Corinthians 10:16-17)
I can't heal the sadness and hurt of a damaged world, but He can. He knows the shattering. He knows the bleeding heart, the isolation, the destitution because He himself was broken.
Sunlight dazzles through a dusty screen, and I long to be out there- out there in all Spring and life unfurling, Mockingbird song, Starling flight, blossom burst.
And I know that this is right- this rejoicing in the mirth and calling it good, because it is gift, a taste of eternity. Despite the suffering, the anguish-
We are one body, all sharing in the broken bread, all sharing in Christ's victory.
Ee Cummings' poem speaks my heart today. Will you take a moment to read it? I was only going to put an excerpt here, but it so lovely, I decided to include the whole poem:
i thank You God for this most amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
That which is infinite. Which is yes.
Yes!
