Light from the Broken Pieces

Reverend Janet Parsons

Gloucester UU Church

November 15, 2020

In the aftermath of this most difficult presidential election, I have thought a great deal about what is happening here in the United States.  We are so divided, and like so many of you, I wonder about what we might still hold in common, what unites us.  To my surprise, I see us these days as united by fear. Many of us are afraid.  Ironically, we are afraid of each other.  Those on the left side of the political spectrum have been afraid for our democracy, afraid of what might become of our political and governmental traditions, afraid for our health, and the health of our planet. In the days following the election, as we waited for a clear outcome, many of us scarcely dared to breathe. Those on the right appear to have different fears. They fear the loss of their way of life; their communities torn by inexorable economic changes, by the threat they perceive of losing what power they hold on to.

 

So much of what we have observed and listened to in recent years sounds like hatred: hatred for those who have black or brown skin, for immigrants, for terrorists perceived to be Muslim, just for starters.  But I have long said that underneath hatred is fear.  Fear begets hate.

 

“Fear is a universal experience,” wrote Pema Chodron, in the reading we heard a moment ago. (When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chodron, Shambhala Classics, p.1). Fear is universal, across time.  After all, the phrases ‘fear not’, and ‘be not afraid’, are said to be the most common in the Bible.

 

Fear is always with us. We are all afraid: afraid of the Coronavirus, afraid of loss and illness and grief. We fear losing our jobs, our small businesses, losing all we love.  We fear everything falling apart, and that we will break.

 

And of course, we fear being afraid.  As I have grown older, the more respect I have for the wisdom of President Franklin Roosevelt, when he stated that ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’  At one time I would have thought, superficially, that he was merely exhorting Americans forward, urging us to have courage. But there is a deeper wisdom in his words.  We are afraid of fear, of the impact of fear: we fear for our hearts, that they may be broken into pieces.  We try to protect ourselves from our fear; hiding from it, running away from it.

 

I have been puzzled over much of the behavior I’ve been watching during the pandemic, and especially the resistance to wearing masks.  According to medical experts, until we have a reliable vaccine, masks are the best protection we have.  Many people, from the White House on down, refuse to comply.  They are in denial: calling the Coronavirus a hoax, refusing to wear masks. Denial of a problem is an attempt to cope with it, to protect ourselves from the fear.

 

Fear weakens us.  We cannot be strong if we are attempting to lead from a place of fear, of denial, from a place where we are trying so hard to protect ourselves and all we are afraid of losing.  And so, because we are weaker as a result, we try to harden ourselves.  We develop protective armor.  Our country becomes hardened. We have an impulse to build walls for safety. Open space between us becomes first divided with fences, and then hardened by walls. Some of us collect guns and carry them around in public.  Some flout public health mandates. Some of us decide we are more afraid of vaccines than of the diseases they were created to prevent. Though the list of protective responses we make is almost endless, the underpinning is always the same: fear.

 

When we harden; when we try to grow a protective shell to keep our hearts from shattering into a million pieces, ironically, we become more brittle. Our country is in a very hard place right now.  We risk shattering.

 

Spiritual traditions all around the world teach us that the way to counter fear is to seek ways to open our hearts. It is in teaching ourselves to open that we can soften, become less brittle, less encased in protective armor.

 

In considering the risk of shattering, I have been drawn not only to spiritual traditions, but artistic ones as well.  Art teaches us to take risks, to find ways of rebuilding our broken places.  Two in particular have recently captured my imagination.

 

The ancient art of mosaic teaches us how to build anew from small pieces. The author Terry Tempest Williams tells us, “I believe in the beauty of all things broken.”  “A mosaic,” she continues, “is a conversation between what is broken.”  (Finding Beauty in a Broken World, by Terry Tempest Williams, pp. 17, 19). Over the centuries, small pieces of marble, stone, and colored glass have been painstakingly placed into patterns and pictures in houses and churches. To create the designs, pieces have to be trimmed into even smaller cubes and triangles.  Sometimes the pieces shatter. But then they are carefully added to a new picture of radiant beauty, sometimes placed at an angle to better capture the light. The art of mosaic creates wholeness out of brokenness, and reflects light out of darkness, much as the crystals and edges of the snowflakes in our first reading sparkle and reflect the light back to us. There is more strength in the soft edges, in the broken pieces joined to create a new whole.

 

I mentioned a second art form: the Japanese art of Kintsugi. This old tradition deliberately highlights imperfection by repairing cracks in porcelain with resin mixed with gold.  Here’s an example, a bowl recently given to me by a friend.  Rather than hiding the broken pieces, the intention is to display them, to reflect all the cycles of breakage and repair in life. We, like the porcelain, break. We can be repaired; strengthened and more beautiful at the broken places.

 

These art forms: mosaic and kintsugi, urge us to not be afraid.  Everything will break, they tell us. Breaks allow light to enter. Breaks can be repaired and from them something new emerges. Be not afraid.

 

But how do we open our own fragile and broken hearts?

 

Pema Chodron tells us that within each of us there is a ‘noble and awakened heart’, known as bodhichitta.  We can access the bodhichitta within us when we stop trying so hard to protect ourselves from fear and pain. There is a Buddhist spiritual practice, known as tonglen, that helps us to awaken our noble hearts.  In tonglen, we learn to breathe in the pain and the fear that we sense from other people. We inhale deeply, and find ourselves able to relax.  The armor begins to soften. Then we exhale, and in doing so, we send out our wishes for the relief of pain and suffering. In this way, says Pema Chodron, we learn to approach fear, rather than to run away from it. Compassion will replace the fear, and we will learn to stop avoiding all that frightens us. (op. cit.. chapter 14).

 

As we close, I am going to invite us, here together, to briefly practice tonglen. In the days and weeks ahead, as we struggle to embrace the future with less fear, may this practice become a source of peace and healing for you.

 

To begin, get comfortable in your seats, and just rest your mind, close your eyes if you wish.

 

Think now about yourself or someone close to you, who is experiencing something painful or frightening.  As you breathe, imagine you are inhaling their pain and fear, absorbing it.

 

Now, as you exhale, send out relief, and a sense of spaciousness. 

 

As you inhale, continue to expand your thoughts beyond the person you know, to include all those who might be feeling the same pain or fear.  Now, exhale relief to all people in the same situation.

 

And now let’s return to the present moment. 

 

My friends, may you find a way to keep your own hearts open, and to extend openness and peace to all those who are suffering.  And may you find that your own fear and hardness begins to soften, so that your hearts will not shatter, but will open and awaken to compassion.

 

May it be so.