I recently came across this quote from Margaret Silf’s Inner Compass. It is simple, direct and true:
Where you are (however unchosen) is the place of blessing.
How you are (however broken) is the place of grace.
Who you are, in your becoming, is your place in the Kingdom.
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However unchosen… however broken… that will stay with me. Thank you!
Fran,
Wouldn’t you kill to be able to turn a phrase like Margaret Silf?
Paul
There are so many nuances to this brief thought and so many layers of interpretation. Where we are is a place of blessing for us if we are open to our Lord but then we become a blessing to others as well even in an unchosen place if we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us. When we are broken we are often more open to God’s grace which can then flow to others more freely. How amazing to know that we are part of God’s Kingdom.
Fr. Eric, I hope you don’t mind but the first person I thought of when I read this quote was you as you have blessed so many and been so open to God’s grace from your place in the Kingdom. God bless.
Fr. Paul, thank you for this thought-provoking beginning to my day.
Lynda
I thought of my brokenness when I read these wonderful words. Thank you for your kind words.
Lynda,
I, too, thought of Eric as I read this and, Eric, I’m not trying to dismiss or make light of your brokenness, but I do hope you realize that you are a lot more whole in all the important ways than most of the rest of us and that, in fact, you help to make us more of a whole.
Paul
Just what I needed to hear this morning (following on the pithy advice of my oldest at dinner last night about a place unchosen, “Mom, offer it up!”). I think I prefer to see the messy spot as a place of blessing – not just a place of redemptive suffering…
Thanks!
Michelle,
Your oldest sounds like my Mom!
m.
Michelle,
Wherever did your oldest learn to say, “Offer it up”?!
Paul
Paul, From me, which made it all the harder to tossed back at me! And Marg, I learned it from my mother – who else?
I have lived my adult life in “however unchosen” trying to piece together the “broken bits”. Not being a grow where you’re planted kind of gal, it has been a rough go. Maybe I can look more often at the grace and blessings of my life as my goal for 2011. It is a hard job, but someone has to do it!
m.
Marg,
About trying to put the “broken bits” together again, don’t forget Leonard Cohen’s, “There’s a crack, a crack in everything. It’s how the light gets in, how the light gets in.”
Here’s to celebrating our brokenness…
Paul
It’s so easy to look back on one’s life and see the darkness, and miss the light that shone in those dark events.
Eric,
As ever, you go straight to the heart of it.
Paul
And….He is there beside you through it all
Andie
Fr Eric
Looking backwards – so true-
but sometimes when I look forward in certain areas of my life,
all I can see is the darkness.
Then someone always seems to enter my life and say “Do not be afraid”
That is grace and blessing for the journey.
I had a (literal) broken arm this year, and it made some things harder. So I find myself feeling a little broken in spirit at present. But this is very comforting.
I’ve been “roles” most of my adult life, I don’t really know the “who” I am anymore. Sometimes too, the cracks of your brokenness are where your light can shine outward.