“It was a time like this. . . when all things fall apart.”

Once, long ago, I sat in the office of someone I was paying to listen to me and told her, crying and crying, all the ways that my life had fallen apart. The room felt close and narrow and so did the horizons of my world. Everything is broken, I said. I broke everything.

She listened and listened and then, unlike most people paid to listen, she sat up straight and leaned forward and fixed me with fierce eyes. And when you break something, like a bowl, what do you do? she said. You glue it back together or you go out and get a new one. This is your responsibility: to build a new life, and now. Not to sit around and cry. Get out there and get going.

Things are always falling apart. And it is always our responsibility to build them back up. So keep the faith, friends, keep the faith. Here’s to the coming new year. 

 

Into the Darkest Hour

            – Madeleine L’Engle 

It was a time like this,
war & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss –
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.

It was a time like this
of fear & lust for power,
license & greed and blight –
and yet the Prince of bliss came into the darkest hour
in quiet & silent light.

And in a time like this
how celebrate his birth
when all things fall apart?
Ah! Wonderful it is:
with no room on the earth,
the stable is our heart.

​For more information on Madeleine L’Engle, please ​click here.

 

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