Posted on by palmtreemomma

The Beauty of Brokenness and Cracks

I find myself sitting alone in a quiet house. Chilled November air dances through the wind chimes and the almost-bare tree branches wave a few remaining leaves. I sit. Still. Trying to quiet my racing mind.

There is so much to do. I want to jump and tackle it all. Create hope and bring healing. Work in a frenzy till I can cross it all off my list. And then. Then I can sit.

I’m not so good at sitting and resting. At just being. Especially when there is work to be done.

Create hope and bring healing

I recently had the privilege to sit in a circle of women. It was an unusually warm day for November. A gift of golden warmth. We sat in the park, under an open blue sky and gave presence to the slow but steady descent of the sun as it kissed the earth good night.

My heart was heavy. So weary of the division in our nation. The anger. Fighting. Tearing each other apart. Forgetting how to listen. To really see each other.

“How are we gifted,” I asked, “to be of comfort and an inspiration to others in the coming months?” How do we create hope and bring healing?

Because we are broken. Divided. Jobs, friendships, and even lives are being lost.
I want to fix it. Create hope and bring healing. Another perspective that will help.

golden truth

But then one of my friends stopped me in my tracks. She pushed back at my question with her truth that was gold.

In essence, she said she was done. Over it. No more trying to heal and mend others. All that was left now was to be her most authentic self.

I sat. Sunned. Inspired. Relieved. The truth, when it shows up, is surprisingly easy to recognize.

And this is what I heard and recognized. A truth familiar but forgotten.

It is not my job to bring healing. To mend the tears in the fabric of family, friends, community or nation. That is a load not intended for me to carry.

BUT – what is on me, is me. My very own self. To love and care for. Nurture and grow. To find the truth of my own authentic self and step fully into who I am.

I’m going to be honest. To truly live authentically takes all of the energy I have. It takes more courage than attempting to heal everyone else. It is harder work. More painful. Gosh! Most days I’d rather go help someone else heal their pain than examine my own. Ouch. There’s more there than I imagined.

authenticity

Looking back over my life I see that the moments I tried the most and worked the hardest to bring healing to others, were the most exhausting. Futile. Discouraging. Leading to complete and utter burn out.

Yet the moments when I was just being me. Like really ME. Who I truly am. People would come up to me and tell me things about myself that shocked me. Ways I had impacted them without even trying.

Maybe the world only needs what fits through the cracks of a broken soul on its way to wholeness.

So maybe the golden beauty is that when we stop trying to fix the brokenness around us and work instead on our own broken and beautiful selves, the healing we find somehow seeps out through our cracks and finds its way to where it needs to go.

Maybe the world only needs what fits through the cracks of a broken soul on its way to wholeness.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still as passionate about living in a world where all creatures, human and otherwise, can be whole and healthy. I’ve just realized anew that if that is to happen, it will only happen if I am as whole and real as I can be.

So I will take up my space in the room. I will care more fully and gently for the person whose face stares back at me in the mirror. Embrace her and put her shoes on each day. I will be her. Not who other people think she should be. Not who she thinks other people need her to be.

I will do my best to be who I know she needs me to be. Because she is me.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

From the Basement of My Soul

4 years ago, I woke up to the news that Trump had been elected. And I wept. Not for myself – as a straight, white citizen, I didn’t expect my personal life to be greatly affected. No, I carried a crushing agony inside for those I care deeply about, who I knew were going to be utterly broken during the coming years.

My tears became a lament. I grabbed pen and paper and let these words flow from the brokenness and despair I so keenly felt. They truly came from the basement of my soul.

So here, in the middle of uncertainty and anxiety, I share with you my prayer of lament. Hoping it can jar free that hope that is in you. That no matter what happens, we are the doulas and there is a birth in process.

From the basement of my soul

As darkness rises, gathers tight
Folds in upon itself
Growing thick and spreading far,
Be the light.
The light in my soul for
Only light can chase back the clutches of darkness
that threaten to take over the land I love
The community I once knew.
My neighborhood far and near.

I cannot shake the darkness
Nor did I ask for this.
Did not enslave or trample my way to the top
But yet
I bear the sin of those who did
Who today are rising even stronger.
Because of the color of my skin I also bear this sin.
While they gloat I grieve a grief
That shakes my soul to the core.
And in that shaking I am undone and lie
A tiny crumpled ball
In the basement of my soul.

And there I weep.
For we have sinned.
Have put on a pedestal those who lie and cheat and steal.
Who happily step on the soul of God’s creation and laugh the wound away. We worship those who break the law to rise to the top but
Point our fingers at those who break lesser laws just to survive.
So we send them to prison or return them to hell while
We gorge ourselves with the darkness and think it is the light.

In the basement of my soul, I am spent.
Day after day I confess the sins of those who share my race and my skin
But not my soul.
Forgive, I plead, and let the madness stop.

I open my eyes in the basement of my soul,
While screaming winds rip apart the roof of my nation
And see I am not alone.
The Light has always been with me and
Others who bear that Light are coming closer
Growing stronger and I remember that
Darkness makes the Light grow stronger.
This cursed wretched darkness is giving courage and bravery
To voices who have never felt needed before.
Out of darkness, hope is born.
Justice is birthed anew while we
The doulas believe and nurture,
Swaddle and grow it.

O Light of all light, push back this darkness.
Expose the hate for what it is.
Peel back the layers to show the fear and
Cleanse this land of self preservation.

From the basement of my soul
I dance with joy because now I see
A nation of Doulas that will never be stopped.
Driving taxis, teaching schools, serving meals, pounding nails
Black, White and all the glorious shades between.
Rich, poor, in rallies or on knees,
In courtrooms, buses, hospitals, airports, prisons.
One doula gives courage to another
And then another and another.
It spreads like a wildfire of light.
Yes!
We are the doulas and we stand guard over this birth
As if it were our own while
Light is born anew and
Given wings to deliver
The death sentence to this darkness.



Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.