beauty and brokenness

i owe this blog several posts. my brain works no less. it's just had some trouble connecting it to the fingers lately.

i spend a lot of time around some of the uglier sides of society and culture. truly it can be overwhelming at times. i think sometimes that the heartbreaking stories in the world can cause my heart to scar and make it a little tougher than i'd like it to be. but, somehow, as often as i'm distressed and distraught, i'm just as often completely caught by the beauty of this world. it makes for a strange tension.

for a world that is broken and has so much pain and hurt, it's remarkably full of breath-catching sights, smells that draw us into long forgotten memories, flavors that pause time, and sounds that can soften the hardest of hearts.

in the middle of some very tedious work tonight i decided to listen to a version of The Water is Wide that my brother found. i've loved that song for a long time, especially by Eva Cassidy, but this version, as he put it "is the best i've ever heard." i ended up taking a bit of a break, listening to probably 15 different versions. one of them had some water and boat scenes in the video and i just sort of went off to my happy place.

water is my favorite part of nature and after a few minute of thinking of the places from where these photos were taken and letting my mind drift with the music, a thought came to my mind. someday this scarred heart and all the damaged places of this world will be redeemed...and my heart jumped to think "what more beauty could there be in a fully reconciled world? my senses reel at the dimly seen version...how much more will i well up when seeing all as it should be?"


i am blessed even to see much of the beauty present in this world as it is. so many will never taste, hear, smell, feel, or see the things that life in a developed country or in a privileged life bring. i do not want to soak up all i can now at the expense of fighting the brokenness that wearies the soul at times. there will always be more to see and taste and smell and hear and feel. it would be a useless challenge to seek it all. instead, i will relish the chances i do get, and work to bring reconcilation to the brokenness in and around me through the one who gives beauty and heals pain. i know one thing for sure. i'd rather have both ends of the spectrum than live somwhere in the middle and never touch either. after all, both beauty and brokenness already live in me..