Ring the bells that still can ring…….Forget your perfect offering……There is a crack, a crack in everything….That’s how the light gets in……~ Leonard Cohen

Over the last weeks I have been in several conversations that hold questions that are similar….are things falling apart? Is the world unraveling? As I engage with these dear, inquisitive ones we almost always agree that these are age-old questions, questions that have plagued thoughtful people since language was first spoken. We also agree that someplace, yes, the world is unraveling for someone, their world but not the whole world. We affirm that in some places things are falling apart for some people, but not for all people. Sometimes this is a matter of privilege. Sometimes this is a matter of perspective. Sometimes it is truth and other times it is a lie being whipped into a message to harbor fear and aid control.

We all carry some brokenness no matter our age, gender, faith tradition, economic situation, status, ethnicity, race. In many ways, it is the one common thing in our beautiful diversity of humanness. Each of us has cracks created by life. Even the youngest and smallest among us. Especially the older and wiser among us. In his song ‘Anthem’, Leonard Cohen lifts that brokenness to a vessel of hope…..’there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’

Perhaps these Advent days of darkness are filled with more unraveling than usual….for some people…..for some places. My sense is that it feels more so because of our connectedness in this age of constant, sometimes overwhelming, information. But the truth remains that the brokenness we carry, all of us, is always with us. What we make of it, how we try to heal it, how we are present to the brokenness of others, is what makes for the light of hope and transformation. 

I think of the people in the story we are walking toward…..the story of Christmas. Each and every one had cracks. Mary, a young unwed pregnant teenager could have tried to hide from a society that would have shunned her. Instead, she opened her arms and her heart to an angel’s message…..letting the light shine in. There was Joseph, an older man with much to lose by taking a young, pregnant woman as wife, he let the cracks of his vulnerability and pride be filled with the light of love. Shepherds allowed their simple, predictable and broken lives to be shattered by the messages of a night sky, following and letting the light of stars dance in their bones. Wise Ones, gave up the luxury of privileged life to allow the cracks of their desire for something More to pour into them. 

There is a crack in everything…..Yes, we come to this Advent with, perhaps, a fuller awareness of the brokenness of our world, our communities, our lives. I wonder if the call of these particular dark days of this December, is not to turn our heads but to open our hearts more fully to those fractured places. I wonder if the call of this Advent is to ring the bells that still have song in them and to allow the cracks to be thresholds for the Light that is always present when we have eyes to see and courage to behold.

May this day be both gentle and prophetic……as Advent is meant to be.