Brokenness as a Doorway to a New Beginning

“A broken man tried to break our purpose,” my ministry colleague prayed to the hundreds of people gathered on our church lawn last summer.[1] We were there with friends, neighbors, members of other churches, and perfect strangers to cultivate strength in a time of weakness, to lean on the support of our interdependent web, to feel in our bones that we were accompanied and not alone.

A broken person lives in their own stew of rage and grief and pain, just like the one I felt stirring within me. And a broken person needs compassion just as much as I do. 

“A broken man tried to break our sense of safety and belonging,” Sarah’s prayer continued. Five days earlier, in the wee hours of July 4^th, a local white man broke into our sanctuary, smashing antique glass and shutters, spraying fire extinguisher foam throughout the interior, and lighting our Pride and Black Lives Matter flags on fire while they still hung from the front exterior wall of our building. The damage was thankfully all reparable, but we were in shock. The event tore a gaping hole in our perceived sense of safety and security. We felt vulnerable in a way we have never felt vulnerable before. 

An Unexpected Phone Call

I had been two days into a much-anticipated road trip when it happened. I was enjoying family time at my brother’s lake house in North Carolina when the call came. In an instant, everything changed and soon I was driving twelve hours straight to get back home. The days following were a blur of pastoral care, church meetings, phone calls, email, and dealing with the press. 

Amidst all of that, if I poked my head just beneath all that anxious busy energy, I had to admit that I was full of rage. I was angry at that man, that he would dare to breach the safety and sanctity of our church home. I was full of hatred at the violent divisive culture of our world, which convinces some people that inclusion and belonging and love are threats to be destroyed. I was outraged that I had to abandon my time of rest and renewal to face a traumatic crisis that I did not feel prepared to face. All of this was swirling beneath the surface like a stinky rotting stew. My fury was doing its damnedest to keep me from feeling my grief, from acknowledging my pain.

“A broken man tried to break our hearts.” Well, he succeeded. In that moment, all my rage and anxiety poured into the bottomless river of grief that had been flowing in me for so long. I was so tired of the helplessness I felt at the state of our nation. I was so exhausted trying to be present to my own anxieties and fears and those of my congregation. I was so weary with the grief and anger that seeped into my thoughts, as each day brought fresh news of our warring and suffering world.

“A Broken Person Breaks Things”

Finally, my broken heart broke open. Calling him “a broken man”—as Sarah’s prayer declared that afternoon, days after this shattering crime—is what it took for me to finally see him as a person, not a representation of evil. A broken person breaks things. A broken person is so full of their own wounds that they can’t help but wound others. A broken person lives in their own stew of rage and grief and pain, just like the one I felt stirring within me. And a broken person needs compassion just as much as I do. 

We have all been broken by life in some way. The last decade of public life alone in this country has created wounds that may take a long time to heal. After November’s election, one thing is clear: we are not done wounding each other. We have all been shaped by trauma and losses, both communal and individual. For some, the worst things we have done, the words or actions that continue to haunt us, happened because we were acting out of our brokenness. 

The Rev. Richard Rohr tells us that “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”[2]Ours is a culture of pain transmission—it gets passed along and intensified in our politics, on social media, even in our neighborhoods and churches. We are seemingly trapped in binaries of us versus them, where each person can only be regarded as either a threat or an ally. Collectively, it feels as though we keep running headlong into the same brick wall, trying to hurt “them” but only breaking “us” further. The great irony is this: We are united by the brokenness that we keep trying to escape and blame on others. 

What if we perceived our brokenness not as a wall we continue to smash against but a doorway through which we all might pass and be able to find healing? 

We Can’t Write People Off

We can be angry at the state of the world, we can be upset, we can resolve ourselves to fighting for justice and truth—all of those are good, all of those are necessary. But we cannot let the pain of the world rob us of our ability to feel compassion for our fellow beings. We cannot write off elements of humanity because we find their beliefs or their actions abhorrent. 

There are people buried so deep in their pain that they may never be able to transcend it. That is tragic, but true. Meanwhile there are so many more of us who can reach through the grief and pain, who want to heal ourselves and the world. That was made visible to me by the hundreds who showed up on our church lawn in July, by the many cards and letters and statements of solidarity that so many allies sent, by the affirmation and support we received from those across the political spectrum. It is reflected in the beautiful faces of my congregation, who create the sacred space of belonging in that sanctuary each Sunday, more so now because of the collective pain from which we are trying to heal. That pain is becoming a powerful doorway for us to contemplate our vision for the future peace we want to help create.   

“Let solidarity help us gain wisdom from our anger; that violence against one person, one people, one church is violence against us all,” Sarah said as her prayer drew to a close. I could only breathe as tears swam in my eyes and I prayed to God to help me keep my heart open. To remind me that we are all broken, we are all capable of healing and we are all deserving of grace. 

The Rev. Emily Bruce ’19 M.Div. is minister of First Parish Church Kingston (Unitarian Universalist) in Kingston, Mass. After receiving her B.A. in theater from Florida State University, she spent the next thirteen years in the theater industry in New York City. At YDS, she also received a Diploma in Congregational Leadership from Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School, the first student to receive the diploma since ANS began its affiliation with YDS in 2017.