Beauty in brokenness

Tonight I'm reminded how much fragility we have just beneath the surface. Sometimes we're aware of it, other times we're blissfully (or not) ignorant of it.

Lately I've been watching a couple of shows on Foxtel that I'm deeply moved by (I know, TV right?) - about addicts struggling with their recovery and about a father and daughter trying to reconcile their relationship after decades of mistrust and separation.

The full range of human frailty is laid bare - wreckless confidence, denial, despair, anger, love, the deep wounds and bruises from childhood, hope, mistrust, the bonds formed by people in the lifeboat together, the power of the mind in helping or hindering someone's recovery.... it's probably 'reality tv' to some, mere entertainment, particularly when the people struggling are those a lot of society (stupidly) holds up as those who 'have it all' because they are, or were once, famous or notorious.

But before we fold our arms and declare them losers, idiots, whatever - it pays to remember that we are all, just one breath, one bad decision, away from ending up in entirely the same predicament. Perhaps not as addicts, but as people facing their fragility, dealing with the broken pieces that we've maybe managed to keep hidden or crazy-glued together for a season.... I think, eventually, we all come undone (to differing degrees).

How we come back from that is as mysterious as it is unique to each of us. I once held incredibly strong beliefs about how a formula of A + B + C always equalled healing. I don't believe those things anymore, but my belief in healing hasn't gone out with the bathwater. No way.

What I think I will always believe, is that recovery from addiction or selfishness or wounds that nobody but those closest to us know about, or whatever plagues us - is that it is impossible to recover in isolation.

We need others. You do, I do. We NEED others.

And we need ourselves, to know ourselves deeply, and with compassion.

As much as that sometimes drives me to the brink, as someone who is often too proud to ask for help (an issue not helped by the nature of my wounds) it is absolutely inconceivable to me that any person can become whole or even begin that process without somebody's arms to fall into when they have nothing left in the tank.

My deepest hope is that every person has someone they can call on in those times. They may be someone in your life for just that season, a complete stranger, or someone you have the gift of long term relationship with. They may be the person you least expect, or want, to come undone in the presence of.

And somehow, in what I can only describe as a profound and utterly mysterious process, there is beauty in that broken place. True beauty. The act of allowing yourself to be embraced by another human being, who is also frail, imperfect, likely to misunderstand or hurt you - that's courageous.

Anyone who is willing to reach out for that kind of help deserves immense respect and admiration.

So, though this may seem a 'heavy' entry, I write from a place of being deeply moved by the intense beauty I see in the midst of the messiness of dealing with our human frailty.

Sitting with people who acknowledge their frailties, whether that's an AA or recovery group, an intimate group of friends willing to unmask themselves (how rare), a counsellor's office, in a family, wherever that freedom is found - that's a place where you and I should take off our shoes - that is what I call holy ground. 

Do you see the potential for beauty in your brokenness? I hope so.