“You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. . .That’s how the light gets in.”
Anthem – Leonard Cohen
“Forget your perfect offering . . .”
Maybe that is what I need to give up for Lent
– my desire for a perfect offering.
The right words.
The perfectly crafted meditation or sermon.
The new idea.
The great turn of phrase or image.
The brilliant blog.
The perfect act of love.
The greater the pressure for the perfect, the greater my paralysis and stiltedness in any action.
“There’s a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in. . .
That’s how the light gets in.”
Lent, it seems to me, is about light breaking in through the cracks.
Grace at the broken places.
Heart broken open to love.
Coming to love . . . “but like a refugee”.
Perhaps the challenge of Lent is to open oneself to the broken heart of the world . . .
and let the light shine in.
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