Broken Dish

We are at times like broken dishes.  Psalm 31 agrees.  A dish in pieces cannot be put back together, at least not by itself.  A community of broken parts, however, can put all the parts together to make a whole.  I have found it so.  Think of recovery programs.  A bunch of drunks are surely broken and cannot put themselves together again.  Each one has tried on their own.  They failed separately.  Together, they can be made whole, not each one separately, but all of them together.  How? They welcome the stranger.  They help one another.  They listen to each other.  They offer solutions that have worked in their own life.  They accept one another.  They do not judge, nor try to make anyone believe anything.  It could be that way in church or synogogue communities too.  Sadly, I have seen it work better with recovering drunks than sectarian, religious believers, faithfully attending their places of worship…separately.  If there is a coffee/donut time after, each person greets their friends.  The stranger, the newcomer, find your own place.  I like to think of God as the stranger, waiting for me to climb out of myself.  Often I do not.  That stone covering my heart gets so heavy.  God, remove it, that I might welcome you.