Today, I chewed on, swallowed, and ruminated on insightful words in Chapter two of Matthew Kelly’s book entitled Life is Messy. He reflects on the theme, A More Beautiful Question, and asks,
“Can something that has been devastatingly broken be put back together in a way that makes it more beautiful than ever before?”
Kelly’s response: “Someone who has been broken and healed can become more beautiful and more lovable than ever before.”
In ruminating on this belief, I am drawn to . . .
. . .the memory of walking a beach with a friend. Her eyes zeroed in on a piece of battered, broken, banged up, and crooked log washed up on the beach. She solicited my reluctant spirit to help her drag it to the car to take home. Years later, I visited her home, and never recognized the same log stunningly decorating the foyer of her house.
. . . the memory of our Caribbean ancestors, their broken bodies, mind, and spirit because of forced migration, plantation slavery, indentureship, colonialism, and post-independent oppressive conditions, and yet the Caribbean has formed world-leading musical icons, Nobel laureates, literary writers, social and political activists, revolutionary fighters, scientific breakthroughs, sports athletes, and a multicultural way of life and geography envied by the world.
. . . the stories of my mother’s personal journey from rural Westmoreland, Jamaica to urban Kingston, and the broken hardships of life, and yet she has become an awesome gem of a mother, grandmother, wife, and person.
How on earth did our brokenness evolve into such beauty?
Richard Rohr was helpful here. He wrote about Job,
“The only thing that could now give Job satisfaction would be the knowledge that he’s not estranged from God” (Job and the Mystery of Suffering).
Beloved Reflections 
I needed this post. Right now, after doing a course on reparations I am very angry. I had never gone into slavery to such an extent. I am thinking of the damage that was done to black people. The point is that there is so much that I don’t understand. Fr. Don please pray for me.
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