Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”
It was amazing how last week on my Facebook feed everyone was shaken by the death of Robin Williams. We see every so often with the passing of someone famous how people will comment. But last night it seemed personal, like one from the family. The man who had been in our living room as the beloved Mork or in our big theatre screens bringing us some of our most beloved movies had the final curtain call. And it seemed all the more tragic that it was a death by suicide due to living with severe depression.
And all I could think of this morning was Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem” and the people all over the world living fragile lives with cracks in it. I think of the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine and Israel where war is the only way of life. I think of the fears of people in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia and the fear of the Ebola Virus. I think also of people who live with mental illness, with addiction, and abusive relationships. I think of broken families, people who are homeless, people struggling for dignity and love.
All these people live cracked lives begging for the light to get in…and how do we respond? How do we help them see there is hope? How do we talk openly about these situations? How do we challenge governments and local agencies and bodies to look at new ways of responding to people in need? How do we move from charity to justice that brings about social change? How do we move from waiting for our spiritual masters to intervene and change things? How do we move from our knees, from our positions of meditation to concrete action?
How do we truly become the light that gets in through the crack?
And so I pray…
O Holy One,
I do not come to you for answers
but the courage and wisdom to stand up for change
in our world.
May I not be one who widens the crack but dares to jump in as the light.
I make this prayer with an open heart and a deep desire. Amen!
