#69 Breakthrough

     “There are at least two ways to picture a broken heart, using heart in its original meaning not merely as the seat of the emotions but as the core of our sense of self. The conventional image, of course, is that of a heart broken by unbearable tension into a thousand shards—shards that sometimes become shrapnel aimed at the source of our pain. Every day, untold numbers of people try to ‘pick up the pieces,’ some of them taking grim satisfaction in the way the heart’s explosion has injured their enemies. Here the broken heart is an unresolved wound that we too often inflict on others. 
      But there is another way to visualize what a broken heart might mean. Imagine that small, clenched fist of a heart ‘broken open’ into largeness of life, into greater capacity to hold one’s own and the world’s pain and joy. This, too, happens every day. Who among us has not seen evidence, in our own or other people’s lives, that compassion and grace can be the fruits of great suffering? Here heartbreak becomes a source of healing, enlarging our empathy and extending our ability to reach out.” 

       Palmer PJ. The politics of the brokenhearted. On holding the tensions of democracy. Fetzer Foundation, 2005.
       http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/writings

Photo: Andre Gallant   http://www.andregallant.com/