A Prayer for the Broken

How can the broken be healed? For those who are most able to be the healers are themselves broken. Those who can bind up are the most brittle. Those who are strongest are the ones who are the most sensitive. Those who shoulders are leaned upon most are the most exhausted.

Brokenness, brokenness! All is laid waste. Joy and mirth, wine and song, they all languish.

If the cords of friendship are strong, they are eventually knifed through my indifference.
If the fire of romance is hot, it burns only to be extinguished by selfishness.
If the hope in the future is certain, it is certainly a wax pillar in the sun.
If words of purpose are uttered, their voice is lost in the roar of the sea of frivolity.

Set aside an afternoon for a man to tell you his joys and you will be free before evening. Invite a man to number his sorrows and you will weep with him into the night.

I am a generation. I am desperation. I am the voice of anger, tears, vile sorrow, vanity, violation, hatred, self-absorption, and apathy. I am a material generation, desperately tired of my senses. If I taste drink, it turns to ash going down my throat. If I hear the stories of famous men, my ears ring like a bomb blast deafening my ears. If I feel the touch of a woman, my body is repulsed into solitude. If I smell the cologne of a man, my nostrils inhale the smoke of the industry that produced it. If I see a fluorescent sunrise, I only hope for the setting sun so I may return to my exhausted and waking slumber.

And, yes. I slumber. I am sleepwalking. I appear to be able to hold everything up, to pull everything together. But gravity pulls me down, down further into the quagmire. For my American Dream, Gravity. For my implanted physical makeover, Gravity. For my frolicking youthfulness, Gravity. For my lust and my allure, Gravity.

Envision a valley. An arid and searing vale. In this desert, there is no moisture. Only thousands of grains of tiny sand. Across each searing speck of dry soil lies a pale white bone. A valley strewn with bones. Bones that need to be reassembled. Bones that need flesh and blood and sinew and the breath of life. Can these bones live? Can these bones rise once more?

From a distant land we hear this rumor of love. We await a magic and mystical kiss of life. But we do not believe it. We have forgotten what love is, and who among the living can now remember it? But we know our hope lies in love. We want to show love to those who need it, but we ourselves are the needy. Love for my brokenness. Love for the brokenness. Love for the broken. Can this brokenness be made solidarity again? Only you can tell, oh Lord.