On Being Broken

I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘if I give you the impression that it is only my mouth that’s rough. I do my best to be rough all over.”

― Peter Høeg, Smilla’s Sense of Snow

“I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.”

― Peter Høeg, Smilla’s Sense of Snow

WE’RE ALL BROKEN IN SOME FASHION, but so often we either accept or fail to recognize our brokenness. The more sane or rational of us make peace with our brokenness, but we don’t always recognize or accept that others are also broken and in need of the same grace we grant ourselves.

The wisest of us recognize that we are broken, that others are broken, and that we are all in need of understanding, compassion, and grace. This is a rare wisdom, and usually causes more heartache and pain for the wise than it does for the foolish or angry who fail to recognize or care that others are as broken as they are.

I’ve been naive for much of my life. As I grow older, I understand that my naivety is deliberate. I want to see the good in people. Having been broken myself, I don’t hold the brokenness of others against them. For the most part, this just makes me weird or eccentric, but there is the occasional fool who disabuses me of my hope for goodness in others.

Over my lifetime, I’ve met some truly beautiful people whom I’ve loved as family, who I took into my heart. I always wondered why they were “so prickly, so rough on the outside.” Others thought them to be aloof, difficult, detached, … and here I was in my naivety trying to befriend them and to earn their respect.

I understand now why some people are prickly.

I understand why some people have rough skins that others are unable to get past.

Being “rough all over” is the sensible reaction to an unkind world where you don’t want to expose your tender or vulnerable parts.

I willingly expose far too many of mine.