Shattered Glass

 

On Monday, I pointed out that often our minds love to fill in the gaps in a story.  We all have biases that block us from seeing/hearing/connecting to others.  We tend to see people not as they are, but as we believe them to be.  And sometimes, because they resent and resist such characterizations, the relationship cracks and crumbles.  Why do we do what we do?  Why do we say what we say?  Sometimes we don’t know.  We are all in the middle of a story called “Our Life” that we don’t know how it will end.  As author Margaret Atwood says, when you are in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all.  Just confusion like a glass shattered or wood splintered.  The story starts to take shape as the sharp shards of glass are swept up to see what can be salvaged, or the piece of art begins to emerge from the whittling down of the wood.  It is only when the melody finds harmony or the notes begin to create what is a symphony.  In the messy middle, which is where most of us find ourselves, there isn’t much of a story.  In a world addicted to certainty, confidence, and being correct, this reality rubs our souls raw.   I am not sure what cliffhangers you carry with you today.  It could be medical, as the doctor adjusts your medicine, or you wait for an appointment with your therapist.  It could be spiritual, as you wait for God to send you a neon sign, text message, or wait for the pony express to bring a telegram.  It could be waiting to see if that frozen conflict has any hope of thawing.  Or culturally, as the world waits to see if peace is possible and if humanity can ever stop hurting and harming each other.  We get a glimpse into the lives of Mary and Martha.  We don’t know what happened the day before or year before in their relationship.  But we do know what happened to us last week with our sibling, and so we inject and project that onto the screen of Scripture.  We don’t know what happened last year to that neighbor with that political sign, so we are glad to fill in the gap of our knowledge with certainty that all people who vote that way or go to that church or have that bumper sticker are like that.  We are in the middle of a story, our own as well as our family story and cultural story and our church’s story and the bigger cosmic story of God’s world.  These stories can be in tension with each other, and we are seeing/living through the cracks in the stories colliding right now ~ like eggs dropped on the floor.  May you and I continue to awaken to the truth that we don’t know what we don’t know.  Or I like to say that the older I get the more I don’t know..and I realize/recognize I may never know.  So I sit in the mystery of life that isn’t a puzzle to be solved but a way to be in the world here and now with love that truly makes a family.  Amen.