It's not all about me ...

Really. It's not.

When I chose the name “A Whole Lot of Broken” to describe this place, this repository for both my random and considered thoughts, I was virtually encompassed and immobilized by the broken state of my health. But my intention wasn’t to focus on all that had crumbled; neither was it solely to relay the story of putting it back together. It was to create a place where I could regularly, perhaps even often, address the other areas of broken that reside in my heart, and the broken we experience in the common world we share.

There is a whole lot of broken in this world, in us, in our pasts, and in the future we are shaping.  I need a place to be with others within the calamity of that brokenness; a place to be honest, to challenge, to listen, to explore, to fight back the disillusionment and despair, and to blow on the embers of possibility. Not hope, though I expect it will emerge. I’m tired of the empty rhetoric of hope, have always argued that hope has to come with a hammer, with a way to bring its invitations to fruition, without which, it is no hope at all. If it shows up, hope will need to be accountable for its audacity or I will wrestle it to the ground and challenge you to help me.

No, it is possibility I want to nurture here. Possibilities have always saved me from whatever impossibilities have ground me to a halt. Whether a problem of time or space, concept or health, reality or fear, the resolution – if there is one – emerges first as a possibility, perhaps one among many. Brainstorming is possibility hunting. We do it when we have to find solutions. We do it when we need answers. We do it because possibility – in its many, many guises, each born in a different context, experience, place, relationship, home or homeland – is what helps us imagine a better future. Possibility is possible. Let’s take the broken there.

I also need a place of encouragement. The word “courage” comes from the old French, corage, which means “heart”, and I have often spoken of encouragement as wrapping our hearts around one another, and written it “en-coeur­-agement” to emphasize the relationship. In every age, humans have found one another in the darkest of their times, and offered their presence in powerful ways. The very act of accompaniment is a source of sustenance more powerful than private prayer at any distance to any god. So I invite you to accompany me here and to allow me to accompany you as we en-coeur-age each other in these challenging times, seeping courage into each other’s laden hearts and strengthening one another’s ragged voices. Courage and strength to face the broken we know; courage and strength to open our eyes to the broken we have failed to witness; and somehow, courage and strength to hold it together. To hold ourselves together. To hold one another together.

Thank you for being my en-coeur-agement and for allowing me into your life to be yours.

All photos are my own. If they meet the standards, you can find the unedited originals on Unsplash. Please feel free to use them as you wish with credit where possible.