Broken

There’s a passage in Deuteronomy called the “Shema,” or literally “Pay attention.” It’s a passage that’s prayed through several times a day by Jews all over the world. It starts like this: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”Another way to say it is “the Lord is whole.” It’s a passage about God’s unity. It’s a passage about God’s perfection.
Lawrence Kushner in his book Five Cities of Refuge describes this passage like this:
“We were more than part of it: we were of it and it was of us. Then we were born and everything began to fall apart, mothers and children, fathers and mothers, siblings, lovers, families, villages, nations. Earliest childhood is living in the unity; adulthood is surviving the brokenness.”
He goes on to say, “…what has come to be called spiritual maturity is remembering the ancient unity and trying to reassemble the shards.” (pg. 140)
I’m constantly reminded that the world I live in is broken.
Brokenness is in the news.
Should we be more concerned about 200lb eight year olds or Jennifer Hudson’s Academy Awards, or the fact that those stories made the front page and the atrocities in Darfur go overlooked?
Brokenness.
We can find brokenness is in our television shows. In our workplaces. On our computer screens. In the 76lb fashion model our daughters long to look like. In the so called, ‘war on terror.’ In our conversations with our spouses. In our response’s to our children. In our families and in our homes.
How do we live in the midst of this brokenness and try to reassemble the shards?
How do we grasp the reality that God is whole?In my brokenness, it’s hard for me to even recognize or understand that which is whole. As much as I long for wholeness, I can’t cling on to it without wondering how long until it breaks too. Yet God is one. God is whole. God has stepped into our brokenness and begun to pick up the shards and piece them back together, and the next time I experience brokenness he’s there once again sweeping up the mess and reassembling the wreckage. Sometimes I’m the source of the brokenness that chips away at the lives of others, and then there’s times I feel like the windshield that slowly spiders to the point where the next pebble, or the next stone, or the next word, or the next look, or lonely feeling, inadequate thought, or embarrassing moment might shatter me to pieces. Yet God is one. God is whole. God never breaks, but is willing to be with me when I’m broken. This is some of the comfort and the wonder and the confusion of the Shema, you can read it in Deuteronomy 6:4