The Persian poet Rumi once said that “the wound is the place where the light gets in.” Musician Leonard Cohen meant much the same in his Anthem lyrics:
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There’s a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
The moment we fall down and scrape our skin on the pavement is the precisely the instant that we are invited to open our hearts to something bigger than ourselves. We see a path that wasn’t visible before. We access a truth we didn’t know before. We know with a new conviction that we are held together by a loving God and will never be broken beyond repair. The fate of Humpty Dumpty is not ours.
“The worst thing that could ever happen would be for everything to go right,” writes Father Jacques Philippe in his book Interior Freedom, “for that would be the end of our growth.”
Trials do one of two things: render us bitter or make us wiser. Failures shave off the protective layer of ourselves, making us more vulnerable. We can shut down in fear, closing ourselves off from the world. Or we can allow the pain to open us in new ways, to pave the way to a fresh resilience.
Paul’s Thorn
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul complains of a thorn in his flesh. He pleads with the Lord three times to remove it. God practices tough love and replies, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” That’s all Paul needs to hear to instantly adjust his attitude. He professes to the people of Corinth: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me….For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
This passage is powerful for me because it reminds me of a rainy morning about 15 years ago. I knelt in church pleading with God to replace my ultra-sensitivity with a laid-back temperament. I asked him to dull the sharp edges of my personality and grant me an ability to brush off the disappointments of life. Like other people do. I told him I was done feeling everything so deeply. I was tired of being the delicate and complex human being He created. I wanted to be someone else.
Not even five minutes later, a woman rose to the lectern and read this passage.
Paul believes the thorn served the purpose of keeping him humble. Perhaps mine does, too, although I don’t think God goes around pricking everyone to prevent pride. I believe the thorn forces strength in the way that lifting weights do. When we challenge our muscles with higher levels of resistance they tear. The body works to repair the damaged fibers by fusing them, which increases muscle mass. It’s called muscle hypertrophy.
Muscle hypertrophy is what Paul was referring to in another letter when he said, “We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:4). Our pain initiates our first visit to the spiritual gym, where we lift the weights of virtues such as justice, temperance, and prudence. If we stick to our routine, we build character, which eventually brings us to hope.
Living “Sin Cere”
According to a popular legend, dishonest sculptors in 16th-century Rome and Greece would use wax to fill in the cracks of marble to make the surface appear solid. The wax would disintegrate right after the sculpture was made so the stonecutters began to stamp blocks of authentic marble with the Latin words, Sine Cere, or “without wax.”
I believe that we are called to live “sin cere” or “without wax.” The tough part of our vocation is to resist the urge to remedy our fractures with artificial glue — like professional accolades or financial success or thrills that feed our endorphins and then make us crash. Holiness consists of filling in our cracks with things that stand the test of time.
Setbacks remind us of the powerful glue that we have in our faith. Humiliations make us turn to the grace that is available at all times.
Falling down forces the humility that is needed for the light to shine through our lives.
This is beautiful and helpful. Envisioning who I want to be made me cry and i think how amazing it would have been to receive the advice in my early 20s. Thank you, Therese. Your timing is perfect for me.
I have always, always loved that posting and it truly builds hope in a very extraordinary way. Yes, nothing is impossible with God. You are His messenger, and thank you, Therese, for sharing this commencement speech again.? It’s a keeper.
Expressing your experience, your truth, thru’ words- spoken & written- is your gift: from God, to the world. I appreciate hearing what you have to say. I look forward to your postings.
Cynthia
I love that poem by Leonard Cohen, a fellow Canadian. My biggest fears were failure, rejection, loneliness and mental illness. My mother had prophesied that I would suffer all those things and I have. They were almost the death of me, however they were not. I have survived. Perhaps it was God, I don’t know. Being brought up in an atheist home, God has not figured largely in my life. I am learning now that ‘something’ is always there. Thank you for your inspirational speech.
This came at the right day for me. Thankyou, I read it feeling all overwhelmed and anxious and the words were jumping in amongst my tears.
I got rejected yesterday from being included in a well respected contemporary art exhibition my local council run. Oh, I’ve been rejected before and bluntly so, but it was the MEANING, the TIMING and the SENSE, PURPOSE of it all. I’ve been told by a lecturer that I had no talent and my work was not ‘contemporary’ enough (go figure) and I stopped creating for 3 years and then became ill. However I picked myself up and kept going achieving a Masters from somewhere else.
I have complex PTSD at the age of 58, barely coping at the moment and still learning what it all means. I have a physical disability and most people have said over the years that oh, did I start creating because I could do nothing else? Not so. It is my meaning, my essence, my reason…truly. When I got rejected as a child and then a woman over the years art and creating was my go to for being.
It gives me purpose and being labelled as an artist gives me a reason.
Maybe I will be worth something to the art world, but now, I’m still aching and feel like I shouldn’t keep going with it all. But that would kick me to a thousand kerbs, truly. And your article really, really helped. And I wish you warmth and rainbows for being you.