Blessing for the Brokenhearted by Jan Richardson

Let us agree

for now

that we will not say

the breaking

makes us stronger

or that it is better

to have this pain

than to have done

without this love.

Let us promise

we will not

tell ourselves

time will heal

the wound,

when every day

our waking

opens it anew.

Perhaps for now

it can be enough

to simply marvel

at the mystery

of how a heart

so broken

can go on beating,

as if it were made

for precisely this-

as if it knows

the only cure for love

is more of it,

as if it sees

the heart’s sole remedy

for breaking

is to love still,

as if it trusts

that its own

persistent pulse

is the rhythm

of a blessing

we cannot

begin to fathom

but will save us

nonetheless.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather

I am vacant

and

the wind

blows through

a

winter tree

stripped bare.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather

this grief

an anvil

hard, heavy,

sharp.

the weight

this sorrow,

a stone

in my heart.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather

I dream drowning and

wake

telling myself it’s over,

think of

something else-

light, laughter

but

closing my eyes

the darkness floods in

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather

Here

can I be found here

in short verse

no longer silenced

by layers of loss?

Today some words came to me-

the first in over a year.

All this time I thought I’d never write again

because life took all the words from me.

Suddenly it feels possible

to move beyond this silence.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather

Broken Open

A teacher says “we are broken or broken open”.

Life has broken me open.

Open to more beauty and joy,

more darkness and sorrow,

more awareness and presence,

a greater depth to love,

compassion.

Open to a desire to live intentionally, fully, vulnerably, as if I have nothing to lose.

A want to slow down, to relish what is precious and fleeting,

a need to slow down, to be here, fully present, fully myself.

Broken or broken open?

The challenge is to stay open, to not live as if I am merely broken- lying around like shards of glass, ready to inflict pain on any who come near.

Because I often feel very broken. Just broken. And I want to go away somewhere, be alone with all that hurts, soak in it for awhile.

Yet redemption of the pain, of my brokenness, is birthed from the opening.

Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you”. I believe it can also be the place- the opening- from which the light shines out.

So mostly my heart remains painfully tender and I continue to be who is left after life has chiseled so much away, has broken me open.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmailby feather