To be ALIVE is to be broken

You want to know the one quality that I respect most in people? HONESTY.

During the past few months I have had some of the most real, honest conversations. People just can't take it anymore...all this "make up." You know? Everybody does it, to some extent. Putting up walls and putting on fake smiles so that, to the outside world, everything looks great. Afraid to be vulnerable because of wounds that have been reopened one too many times. As one friend put it, "there has to be more to life!" I say...indeed, there is.

It's so easy to become numb to our problems and to the world, trying to hide from all the brokenness. Which is one quality that puts me on edge...APATHY. It could be one of the most dangerous attitudes. When you don't care you don't feel. And when you don't feel you aren't alive...you are just living. Apathy is also the easy road. Shutting off our emotions is just a way of putting up walls so that we don't get hurt. It allows us to get through life...lifelessly. Like in the song Runaway Train by Soul Asylum..."Can you help me remember how to smile? Make it somehow all seem worthwhile? How on earth did I get so jaded? Life's mystery seems so faded..."

Honesty is scary but, you want to know what the best thing about honesty is? It keeps us ALIVE. I'm not talking about breathing lungs and a beating heart. I'm talking about giving meaning to life. When we are real with ourselves and with each other there is no room for "fakeness." When all our crap is out on the table it allows us to deal with it. Not alone...but with each other. Which also brings us closer to the people around us. We weren't put on this earth to 'figure it out' all alone. Amazingly, a lot of us are going through the same stuff. We all have a little bit of wisdom that we can share to help each other learn and change and grow.

It's OK to talk about stuff and ask the tough questions. I think our society is afraid of this because it allows others to see us as we really are. If we take off all the masks everyone can see everyone else's ugliness. I wish we would embrace our brokenness. It might be painful at times but, in the end, so much more real and joyful.

As Henri Nouwen, author of 'Life of the Beloved,' explains it, ""My own experience with anguish has been that facing it and living it through is the way to healing. But I cannot do that on my own. I need someone to keep me standing in it, to assure me that there is PEACE beyond the anguish, LIFE beyond death, and LOVE beyond fear. But I know now, at least, that attempting to avoid, repress, or escape the pain is like cutting off a limb that could be healed with proper attention. The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it. The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved sons/daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity."

So...suffering leads to joy. It allows us to realize, not only that we are broken, but that there is more to life. Much more, indeed. Jesus didn't come just to tell us about heaven. He came to show us how to LIVE. How to be ALIVE...NOW.

We are all broken and this world is dying. There is another path. The wounds can be healed. Be honest with yourself. Follow the light. It's scary but you'll find that, when you reach that light, you will never look back. It will soon be frightening to imagine life without this light. What this world needs is broken people who have COME ALIVE...



"In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." -John 1:4-5