Haven Kimmel was once a radical atheist. She emerged from that orientation, and became a best- selling author raising spiritual issues in her stories. In one, a character remarks: We live lives that are hopelessly broken and we know it. What is our response to such a statement? Kimmel’s response was to search, and share her findings in writings about what she learned. She was dissatisfied with some of the ministerial addresses about problems. One of her characters complains that ministers of her mother’s church: pull my soul right out of my body and devour it with their banality. Her observation reminds the Bible reader of a similar lament of Ezekiel, recited in Chapter 34 of the book bearing his name.
In the light of Scripture there is left no doubt that lives are broken. We cannot be sure that everyone knows it. One of the defensive competencies of many persons is to anesthetize themselves against negatives in their lives. They live with some denial, perhaps in addictions that deny truth about themselves and others. There is, for example, a general muting of death, of evil, of lostness. It becomes more obvious in the way transitory matters are treated in daily life, in the shallowness of their experiences. They may survive on inconsistency, on personality, on cleverness. They gain personal satisfaction from money, or power, or celebrity. They follow certain fashions, some of which even they deplore. Little seems good enough to be lasting. They have few resources for suffering, death, grief, reverses, personal attack, hatred, temptation, degradation and the like. Distracted persons tend to believe that mankind is lost in the cosmos.
Jesus proved in his life and teachings that mankind can find righteous (God ordered) patterns, attitudes, growth, thought, worth and hope that provide courage and strength for daily living, for flourishing, for peace, and ultimately for dying. The person becomes a new creature in Christ. Former patterns fade away, behold all things become new. That means new beginnings. A baby is a new creature from the womb-life. The infant has a heap of learning and growing to do. So much ought to go into the child in nutrition/health care, in exercise/rest, in work/recreation, in thought/distraction, in attitude/devotion, and the like, to make a mature person. When it is properly functioning, this miraculous life moves toward wholeness, not brokenness. The mortal will put on immortality. One’s closest friend is God, with whom a person becomes intimate if the individual wants to develop a relationship. There is the rub. The individual is left to determine the extent of relationship. We choose status of dependence of a child upon the father. The human goal becomes righteousness for natural life. It is the way to wholeness. It is a growth process. There are levels of growth. Although I am close to all my children, I am sure that if I had the omniscience I would attribute a point more here, a point less there. God knows true genuineness before he sees it in us We are known spiritually in degrees with God as noted in Hebrews 4:12-13. The secret of wholeness and righteousness is found in that sometimes difficult commitment to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit of God. There, brokenness is mended leaving no scar tissue on the soul. It is good to follow Bible narratives on brokenness, and how running sub-plots relate to our condition of need, and the restoration of God’s wholeness in us. We are rightly told that the best context for a life is that called holistic. There is a unity for the individual, oneness, and that is fulfilled in obedient Christian life. It takes considerable application in our lives to discover direction to that ideal – for effective living. We do have the privilege of beings gratified with self because of direction found in spiritual faith and dignity. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020