Brokenness, in my opinion

I had a conversation with a dear friend the other night. I was throwing around a lot of terms like “broken” and “flawed” in reference to how people often feel, or how they feel as a result of being judged by others. For days after the conversation I could not get the thoughts out of my mind. I still don’t feel as if I have sorted it all out well, but I feel like spelling it out anyways. I refer to myself in my blog as being “beautifully broken.” I’ve been asking myself, “What the heck does that mean anyways?” At one time I thought I knew; lately I’ve been trying to really break it down. I guess I just don’t want to throw around the term broken so casually as to offend anyone.
When I think of brokenness I think of a world where there are enough people and enough resources to satisfy many of the needs in the world; and yet it’s not happening. I think of people who die from illnesses that we in America have immunizations to prevent. I think of how we could share those things, yet others are still going without.
I suppose largely I think of our capacity as human beings to love one another. Then I look at the world and see how we don’t. My own brokenness does not lie in the mistakes that I have made, the choices I continue to make, or the emotional scars I live with daily. It doesn’t lie in the things I do that others don’t agree with. My brokenness lies in the shame I carry as a result of those things. I am broken when I judge others, when I allow fear to overcome opportunities to be honest, and when I am apathetic to other people or events. My brokenness lies in the weight I feel when others do the same and it some how becomes something I help them carry. So how can that be beautiful? I guess the beauty is in the journey I have traveled to get to where I am in life today. The beauty lies in my continuing effort to strive for more. Not for more money, friends or more things; but for more honesty, love, and compassion.
We live in a society where we are bombarded with opinions of what is right and what is wrong. I dare say, if we didn’t apply so much of our attention to those things would we spend more time trying to love each other as we are? Would then some of the brokenness we feel begin to melt away and things such as hate, crime, and violence begin to dissipate as well? How much of our brokenness is directly related to our feeling unloved?
Ok, so I realize some people may read this and think I must have been born in the wrong era, because we heard all this “all we need is love” mumbo jumbo back in the 60’s. However, I’m not referring to a desire to be loved that calls us to protest, riot, or any other behavior that somehow reaps negative consequences in the end. I just wish we would be willing to have the “tough” conversations, to share some tears, and begin to let the walls around our hearts crumble. Maybe then we would see that we are not alone and maybe we would stop trying to fight all these battles on our own.