What protects our hearts

I’ve been really into Ingrid Michaelson (she’s a singer) for a while now, but in particular the past few months. Her elegant voice gliding along notes paired with piano melodies and a strumming guitar and the occasional percussion emphasis brings more peace to me than most anthems I find on the small expensive handheld machine that pumps music to my ears.

Her song, “Breakable,” has always been my most loved – the lyrics simply intrigue me…

“Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts.
So it’s fairly simple to cut right through the mass,
and to stop the muscle that makes us confess.
And we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise
and we are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys.”

These honest words always stop my thoughts right there and cause me to wonder. It’s true, right? We as human beings really are delicate and can at any moment be “broken.” We’re fragile though only when we allow ourselves this state of vulnerability, a state of being that many of us refuse or, in the very least, find it extremely difficult to indulge upon.

This song has reminded me of a concept that fellow volunteer friends use as a means of evaluating how much their “service” has “changed” them.

We talk about how our service can break our hearts – shatter them, actually, but only if you’re really lucky. What does this mean? Why would anyone want their heart broken? Well, if you live in such a way that you let the lives and love of others tear your heart open so much that it hurts – that it breaks – only then will you finally see Love, only then might you change.

Instead of trying to avoid this heart break, it is part of the mission of true service, true justice, to allow yourself to be broken into a million pieces because that is the moment you are at your most vulnerable. That is the moment you have broken down all walls, all hesitations, all previous expectations, all preconceived ideas, and can allow yourself to see the person in front of you and love them just as they are.

It is a gift, really, when a person with a life so much harder than you could ever imagine invites you into their struggle, into their life. It is a blessing when they share their family with you, their home with you, and their heart. It is a prayer when they hug you and invite you to sit on their tiny wooden chair and offer you beans and ugali, the dish they make for every meal, and insist you eat a second helping.

But sometimes you can live these moments and as they happen, you recognize the beauty of their life and of your friendship, but you leave their house still unbroken. You can bake them cakes and take them candies, without ever recognizing your action might bring momentary happiness but can never change their circumstances. In fact, eventually you realize that your treats are nice, but you are constantly bringing them evidence of your privilege, though because of their generous sympathy they forgive you for it.

I think I’ve become stuck in this mission to be broken, which is a little paradoxical because the breaking usually happens organically. It is usually the surprise toy at the bottom of the box when all you were really digging for were extra sugared raisins. Maybe I’ve poked a hole right through the other side without recognizing this cereal also has nuts, and dried blueberries, and those yummy sugar-cinnamon covered oatmeal crunchies, a combination that leaves your tummy completely delighted and makes you forget about the plastic Dora-the-Explora toy.

So how does one start over after a seven month search? To be honest, the “let go let God” thing is getting old. I’m a go-getter, a “do-good-er,” a can’t-sit-around-and-wait-er. In fact, that’s why I visit so many of my friends, why I accept the invitations into their battles for survival and allow my eyes and ears to see and hear this tragic truth. What am I missing? Have I seen too much that now my heart is numb? Am I protecting myself from something without knowing it? I feel like I’ve skipped so far ahead of myself I have no idea where my tracks have come from. I guess for now I just need to hold on to the idea that we are all just breakable girls and boys, and hope that God will help my heart shatter.