What a day–lots of life lessons today. I headed to the beach for my “play date with God” and went first to the section of beach I know best, I guess, across from the old gallery location. What got my attention there was how many rocks there were, some good sized ones too. It made me remember how much I used to love to collect rocks as a kid, how the teachers let me and Greg W. out of playing on the playground so we could hunt through the river rock beds beside the building for fossils. There were a lot of people there, though, so I left and wound up walking the beach all the way down at ramp 23 south of Salvo. What I realized first was how uncomfortable I was with the thought of playing — I mean, how do I play? I have learned a bit about relaxing, but play seems different. I didn’t know how, or what to do different. I looked for dolphin–they seem like playful critters–but there weren’t any. I looked for rocks but this beach was more typical with shell fragments. I did find some heart-shaped ones but that didn’t seem different than my usual beach walks. I remembered skipping rocks with my Dad as a kid, so I tossed a couple–one rock, one shell fragment–and they skipped in the wave wash, and I laughed. But I have done that before and it didn’t seem to qualify as a big time play date.
Then walking back I decided to investigate this pile of…something…I’d spotted walking down. Turned out to be a large cache of broken whelks. Earlier I’d said, I think I am broken inside, I don’t even know how to play! And here were all these rejected, discarded, not-perfect, broken whelk shells. At first, I thought how beautiful they would have been if only they were whole. Then I started thinking how beautiful they were, period. I began to wonder if any of them would have a heart shape in the broken place, like the one my friend Toni found on her play-day earlier this week, and gave to me. Somehow in digging through that pile of whelks, and unearthing the buried ones, something switched, or clicked, on or off, I don’t know which. It was fun. It was like a treasure hunt. And I did find hearts, lots of hearts! And I could feel You there. Once You said something about looking inside, and right after that, there was the shape of a heart in the pattern inside the swirl of the whelk shell. So thank You for today. It really was fun. And I think I learned a life lesson, at least I hope I did, about brokenness, about the way You see us. You see the beauty, You see inside, You see potential. Right?
Here is what will be hard for you to understand, in your duality of thinking. You think and see, broken OR whole. Broken VS whole. Perfect VS flawed. But here is what I see: Beauty IN Brokenness. Wholeness IN Brokenness. You keep waiting to reach some state of being, some ability or achievement, where you can finally decide, now I am whole, now I am beautiful, now I am worthy. Sweet little one, you are already whole, already beautiful, already worthy in My eyes, for My eyes see only through Love. And when Love beholds the Beloved, Love sees only Love — Love reflected, Love transforming, Love renewed, Love reciprocated. Love and only Love. So I don’t see you beautiful IN SPITE OF, which is how you would tend to think. I see you beautiful. What you see as flaws, or broken places, I see as soul topography. Imagine a totally flat, featureless landscape. Now imagine the kind of landscape you love most, with some elevation, some texture, maybe some rolling hills, maybe some rolling waves, and always some bird or critter inhabiting. Which is boring? Which is exciting? Which has more possibility? Imagine a blank canvas. Imagine a blank page. These have possibility only if they allow transformation! Only if they welcome change! If the canvas or the page had the ability to choose stagnation and sameness, what gift could they give the world? It is only in their willingness to no longer be blank, but to be transformed, over-written, with great globs of paint, that they have the possibility of intense, immense beauty or soft subtle beauty or persistent steady solid beauty. You see?
I think so. So my broken places…
Like the lyric says–are where the light gets in.
OH! Oh, right. One more question–when You said the other day a better translation of perfect would be whole, doesn’t that mean whole shells are better than broken ones? Right?
If the whelk Toni gave you, and the whelks you found today, had never been broken, they would not have hearts to share, now would they?
So we need to be broken? That sounds…scary.
Broken is such a negative word in your cultural vocabulary. Again, think of paper, think of canvas. Think topography. If a whelk shell fulfilled its many life purposes, being completely whirled at one phase, and then tumbled and in pieces in another phase, but the pieces themselves became gifts from the sea, and the remaining whelk shell became another gift from the sea, doesn’t this become a story about GiveAway? Can’t the shell give-away of itself? You do, all the time.
Think of the Bread, broken. The Cup, shared. Think of the Loaves and Fishes–Multiplied. If you can be willing to play, to admit into your landscape of responsibility some texture, some topography, of playfulness, you will multiply your ability to make a difference, multiply your gifts. But you have to be willing to change, to let the practice of playfulness transform you. I must tell you, you will not be the same. But I would never call you into territory that I did not intend as blessing for you.
Gosh, it’s different than what I expected. The Practice of Playfulness?
Healthy children play every day. Did you think this was to be a one-time event?
I didn’t think past today, honestly. Playfulness every day?
It doesn’t have to be long. Don’t make this into some new commitment you have to calendar and schedule and check off your to-do list–that defies the whole idea of play.
God, I think You are going to have to teach me how this can work. Ha, “can work!” See? I really need You for this. But yes, as I told You before, I am willing to try.