Let Your Heart Break

Let your heart break for this world. 
Do not be afraid to stay there at the wound of the world, 
weeping with those who weep…

Into hearts broken open the light of love shines…
Take courage. Do not despair at the oppressors,
who are captive to the spirit of pride and violence…

We have been sent to make gentle this wounded world, 
to dwell as healers among fearful souls,
to shine light in this darkness… 

(Excerpts from a poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light  www.unfoldinglight.net)

I read this poem one morning recently when I was feeling rather overwhelmed with sadness—for the stark realities of climate change, for the people of Ukraine, for the lack of civility in our own country. These words reminded me that it is okay to mourn, to be afraid, to feel the world’s pain.

A friend recently said, “In lamentation there is hope, and I always look for the hope.” But in these days of war and catastrophic desecration of earth and life I am finding it very hard to find that hope. Instead, I’m angry and afraid. And my heart is breaking…

Then I read the following words from Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century, who reminds us that: 

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefor we are saved by love.”

These words helped me to find some perspective. Life still often feels like it is tearing me apart…and there are too many days when it feels impossible to hope, to imagine peace. Yet that is exactly what I think our faith calls us to be—people who keep on hoping, who keep on investing in peace, who keep on loving.

So these days I let my heart be broken, I let myself touch the pain of the world, and I weep with those who are weeping. And then, like the sunrise in this photo, I look for the light shining through the brokenness and commit myself again to living in hope.