I remember a game I used to play as a child. On the west side of our house there was a large stack of thin wooden shingles. I would pick up these shingles and break them in my hands. If this did not work, I would muster up some strength and break them over my knee. If they were so big that this would not work, I would prop them up against something solid and jump on them with all my might. It was a kind of test of strength for me. It had no purpose. It was mindless, but somehow fun.
Much of the time, I feel like this is what the cosmos does to us. The great forces of the universe seem to pick us up, and smash our hearts. Some of us are stronger than others, but all of us will break. Sometimes the gods don’t think it is enough, and they break us again… and again.
Recent events make me wonder if such hearbreak ever stops. We are always on the lookout for our fair maiden, or our knight in shining armor, but maybe we are just fooling ourselves. I have broken hearts before. I have had mine broken. We are a world full of users and cheaters. I wonder if I could ever make a good priest. I wonder if I could ever make a good husband and father. Most of the time, I seriously doubt it. I see too much of that shingle-smashing child in me.
Hurt people hurt people. I try to find that grace where it stops. I try to be that change that I hope to see in the world. I know that I will never be that knight in shining armor. I relinquish the idea that it is my responsibility to glue hearts back together –my own included-. The world is a shattered pile of woodscraps.
But Jesus is a carpenter, and he specializes in making beautiful things out of scraps.
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