Embracing Brokenness
Written by admin July 1st, 2008 in on the wayBy Parker Palmer
The wilderness constantly reminds me that wholeness is not about perfection…. I have been astonished to see how nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds. Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness—mine, yours, ours—need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.
Source: A Hidden Wholeness
Yes, yes, yes. This has been my experience. We don’t necessarily have to use devastation for the seedbed. We just have to recognize that it is and allow the tears and the pain water the seeds until they germinate. God makes all things beautiful, not perfect, in his time. On the other hand, maybe brokeness is perfect.
This comes as close as anything I have ever read so far to explaining to me how I should view my first half of my life - devistation. Use as a seedbed for wholeness -
Peace to all! This is an exceptional thought well expressed by Palmer.
Have not known of him, so Google helped me understand what a biography he has. Must read more of him as a contemporary! I am always particularly interested in a person’s religious belief, what drives him/her. About this piece I add that devastation is a part of everyone’s life, a part of our learning process. Old things must give birth to new, greater things, as learning to use a straw is better than sucking a pacifier! For each of us death is a “devastation” that is seedbed for eternal life.
Thank you for these beautiful words of encouragement.
If life is a kaleidoscope, devastation is simply another one of its patterns. My log cabin sits at the edge of 3 acres of woods. There is a winding path that leads from below my screen porch into the trees and stops at a tent. The tent looks out over an area I call “the bramble.” The bramble is a tangle of fallen and bending tree limbs looping around one another to form an arch of smaller branches, twigs, and leaves. I don’t know what caused it, but by some it might be viewed as “devastation.” The light and shadow plays to reveal and then conceal secret caves in the bramble where small animals and birds feel safe. It is one of my favorite spots to sit quietly and gaze at the dappling patterns until I see a slight movement that was not visible until I grow completely still and aware. I hope and pray that my own devastational choices continue to reveal their harvest of wisdom lessons; their slight movement that flutters with new life. Perhaps what I think is unhealed and unhealable is simply the prelude to another turning of life’s kaleidoscope. Most of all I hope this same healing comes to other survivors of our shared devastational experience. Shhh! Stay quiet and gaze. See it as God sees it.
The county where I live in California is surrounded by national forest on three side, and the Pacific Ocean on the 4th.
We here in the county have a saying that goes thus: We have four seasons, flood, fire, earthquake, and rage. We are visited by the first three seasons every year. The fourth has not been deemed worthy for the national news for many years, but the lives of quiet desparation that too many people live are visible to the not-otherwise-engaged eye, everywhere, all of the time.
Brenda, I like your responses, everyday, and gain a lot from them; but your response today is especially helpful in my understanding and applying to myself the piece presented today here on Inward/Outward.
Deanna, it is dialogue with you and other inward/outward companions in response to Kayla’s selected meditations that sharpens my awareness and forms us into a creative community. I am very grateful to receive this beautiful and challenging spiritual forum on a daily basis. Speaking of your own response, may God Bless you in your endurance of California’s four seasons of flood, fire, earthquake, and rage, silenced at times, I am sure, by choking mud-slides. I was in the earthquake in 1994 near L.A. It was a curious experience for me, but a “devastating” (to quote a recent meditation here) experience for many Californians. I pray for you and all Californians during the current fires in the Monterey Bay area. We will be coming out there in September and will join with all Californians in whatever nature brings.
Sidebar to Brenda -
I live in Ventura County, between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties.
Give a shout out if you are going to be in the area.