We Are All Broken

Six Ways to Help Heal Ourselves

In 1957 my homeroom teacher, Robert Lee, wrote a note at the bottom of the worst report card of my life — mostly C’s, at least one B, and two D’s. He said that I was doing “below average work.”

Two years earlier my dad was struck in his car by a man racing through an intersection. Dad died in the emergency room of the hospital. He left behind a 36-year-old widow and seven children ages 3 months to 10 years. I was second to the oldest, age 9.

The first winter after dad’s passing, the furnace gave out in our house and we moved 10 miles to a Michigan town of 16,000 people where our family doctor gave us temporary housing over the top of his office.

We eventually moved into a different house, attended a different school, joined a different church, but with the same chaos that was visited on our family that morning in 1955. We were a broken family.

There is brokenness that we bring on ourselves, and there is brokenness that other people or events hand out to us. Either way, and usually, both ways, we are all broken.

Most of us will not measure up to everything we thought we would have or should have or deserve to have in life. There are times when we screw up royally, when we embarrass ourselves and disappoint those who care most for us.

This is the raw side of what we call life. Nothing pollyannaish. It’s just as Thich Nhat Hanh observes in his book, “Living Buddha, Living Christ”, “Suffering is…