Cracks
“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen, Anthem
His head lists to one side in a way that looks uncomfortable. Hands with awkwardly curled fingers rest in his lap. As his friend wheels him toward his seat, I notice that while his entire body seems to be downcast his eyes are trained hopefully upward.
I’m guessing she is in her late 80s, wearing her Sunday best with comfortable shoes, her feather weight body balanced precariously between a cane in one hand and her grip on the young woman with the other hand. The pair shuffles down the aisle and the younger woman carefully helps the older lower herself into the seat and settle in. She sighs from the effort, arranges her skirt, and gazes expectantly at the stage before her.
The young man (younger than me at least) is solid as a rock, “ripped” some would say. His hair is short, neat as a pin, military-style. A large and serious looking dog is glued to his side, ambling with a gate that suggests intelligently restrained power at the ready. His harness identifies him as a service dog. The man doesn’t walk with a visible limp or disability, but I’m certain he, like the rest of us, has one.
She’s a teenager, possibly a young adult, it’s hard to tell. She’s a bit disheveled. Her mom, young looking herself, is thin and looks exhausted, but she’s smiling. The young lady doesn’t speak, at least not in intelligible words, but she makes a lot of noise—loud noise. And excited movements with her hands, sometimes with her whole body. I can sense the tension in those around me. The service dog trains his eye on her for a moment, assesses, then relaxes again. She comes and sits next to me. I turn to smile at her and beneath a curtain of dark stringy hair styled only by her high activity and the wind, I connect with deep brown eyes that dance and smile. I am surprised as she puckers and smacks her lips at me. Her mom chuckles, “sweetheart, you can’t just kiss everyone.” But oh, yes, I think you can, sweet thing. At least in your heart and with your eyes and with that glow that emanates from your face. As the background music begins a man starts to talk about Jesus—and the young lady just can’t sit still. She claps her hands, then gets up and runs around. “She just loves Jesus,” her mom explains as she shoots up and races after her.
The cracks are where the light gets in, and she has opened her cracks so wide that the light spills out and warms the shadowy cracks in me.
Lord, help us be unafraid of our own cracks and the cracks in others. Instead, may we embrace them and open them wide enough for your light to freely flow in and through them, reminding us that our beautiful humanity—as fragile and flawed as it is—is a gift from you, without which we would never experience the freedom, healing, or redemption that come from the light and life of your love.
Bathed in your light, our cracks are holy ground.
Amen.