“There’s nothing as whole as a broken heart.” I read that sentence and just stopped. And sat. And let it wash over me. We have two different small groups reading Rachel Held Evans’ book “Wholehearted Faith,” during Lent at Christ Church Easton.
In a chapter titled “Where Stone Becomes Flesh,” she quotes Ezekiel:
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
If there is anything we need in the world today, it’s to be able to cast off our hard hearts and start working and living with hearts of flesh.
Evans explains it further. She quotes Rabbi Ariel Burger from an interview.
“There’s a Hasidic teaching, from Rebbe Nachman of Breslow: ‘There’s nothing as whole as a broken heart… In these traditions you cultivate a broken heart, which is very different from depression or sadness. It’s the kind of vulnerability, openness, and acute sensitivity to your own suffering and the suffering of others that becomes an opportunity for connection.”
On Thursday night discussing the chapter, someone read this passage, and then added, “I’ve got a broken heart. And if through that, I could help someone else…”
And that’s it. Right there. When we take what we’ve been through, the hurt, the pain, the suffering, and see it and use it and offer it as a way to help others, then love wins.
That’s part of what we are here for. That’s the work that God has given us to do. To love one another.
Amen.
