The morning air is all awash with angels … – Richard Wilbur
You cannot unbreak a broken stick.
This morning, I awoke to a sense of life’s forfeiture. I am broken.
I’ve lived half my life, if my mother is to be believed I’m only in my middle years, as if I am a broken stick; a lost cause [in my mind.]
Separated from love, undeserving and
Lost to hope, real joy and vigor.
Trudging along beside humanity
Caught in my heartache.
Living in the grays, all color is gone.
Broken, bent, useless; a searing mark of shame,
On me.
I believed the lie – I am too broken.
Yesterday I heard my father talking to me about reconciliation. Oh the irony!
Yes, our family is stuck, stuck broken open in pain, wrecked by sorrow and a narrative we’ve been unable to overcome. Addictions, the palliative that settles us for a moment; achievements, work, knowledge, studies, alcohol, even religion our swan song.
God is saying that I need to sort things out, that I am not
A lost cause.
But many things have become an immense wall of fear and excuses.
And if I say this out loud, it sounds like blame.
Brick by brick, I have built a wall like Fort Knox around my heart.
A broken stick cannot be fixed, but a branch
Still attached to the vine can be pruned.
Holding on to that image of hope which honors god’s love for us and his forgiveness of us and his promise to make all things
NEW.
Fear is the thing that corrodes my spirit and damages everything good in me. It is not from God. God seems to be working on in me,
In my sleep, asking: Do I trust him enough to help us work toward reconciliation? Can I let go of the belief that our family was broken such a long time ago, so broken that it would never heal.
I’m trying to trust that God can heal anything
Even a broken stick
That is me.
Logic & Imagination 
A broken stick is still able to be fashioned, carefully molded into something pleasing, useful, beautiful, and sturdy. My father in law is a wood-worker, and I never understood until he showed me how amazingly beautiful broken pieces can get molded into larger pieces to make striking designs and asthetically moving works of love’s labour. You’re that way, Sis. Always have been. You don’t see the finished result, but you’re incredibly beautiful where God has whittled, spun you, and smoothed the rougher edges…
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You’ve been with me a long time Charles, and have a way of bringing a hopeful perspective. Thank you.
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