Hello, dear reader. Thank you for being here. I wrote this last week but had some trouble with my site. Fortunately or not, this post still feels relevant. Have you read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön? My book group just read it, and it has some (maybe) counterintuitive advice about how to meet difficult times. At first I had the book confused with Things Fall Apart, the hugely influential African novel by Chinua Achebe. I’ll save that for another day, but a quick digression on the title, which comes from this W.B.Yeats poem. It’s probably floating around a lot out there, but I never tire of it.

The Second Coming  

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know   
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What does all this have to do with a book by an American Buddhist nun, you might ask? And why are we drawn to the drama of brokenness, to the disaster of things falling apart?

Or maybe you’re not drawn to it all, but prefer to scurry as far as possible from the dysfunctional and messy, stopping your ears and closing your eyes to any trouble. I’m often guilty of that! We can worry about letting too much disaster flood in (our own, and the struggles of others) because we fear being able to put ourselves back together again. But Chödrön suggests that the only way to handle dangerous difficulty is to stare right into its attack-dog eyes.

It seems counterintuitive, but in both Buddhist practice and in Christian life, it is our deepest fear, brokenness, and failure that allow us to draw closer to the heart of meaning, and to our authentic selves. It is how we discover the unique person God made each of us to be. There’s a lot of talk among educators about “growth mindset” and “getting out of your comfort zone.” Though I’m a bit jaded about the terminology, the concept is valid. If we are to grow, we have to face our weaknesses, which are the very places in us ripe for change, and ready for the Holy Spirit to transform. But in order to approach these rather dark and fearful areas we have to practice loving-kindness with ourselves, and be compassionate with our own struggles. This does not mean letting ourselves off the hook, not at all. It means sitting with the Truth.

Here’s what Paul says about “thorns in the flesh” and how difficulties can open us to a greater strength.

2 Corinthians 12 (NKJV)

 ⁸ Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. ⁹ And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The first chapter of Chödrön’s book, “Intimacy with Fear,” is kind of the opposite of what I thought I wanted from life. But this week I have been trying to take her advice. Meditating, focusing on the out breath. Every exhale a little death. Every exhale a clearing away. A clearing. When any thought comes into the mind just to say compassionately to myself: “thinking,” and brush it away. How useful that is. The meditation posture is a good place to begin to do the work on ourselves that still needs to be done, so that others don’t have to do it for us.

A few years ago I went on a hike. At first it was a grind, pushing beyond where my comfort-loving self wanted to go, having to stop frequently to catch my breath. But gradually I began to see how much more was there, the ants making their way on the flat hot stones and the vista of the valley below, and where the settlement stopped and blended into the wild undeveloped hills. I felt the expansiveness in being very present to the moment, and also to its discomfort (I feared I was getting lost, and only had a small water bottle)! But I keep remembering that small victorious knowledge that could not have been achieved another way, certainly not if I’d stayed home. Did things fall apart that day? Not at all. But in the course of one day there were many little falling apart moments that I breathed into and was rewarded with self-knowledge, vision, and Presence.

We have to put ourselves in positions at times to be cracked open again. Or just allow what is happening to happen with less willful resistance. Sometimes we feel utterly lost, uncertain, exhausted, confused; at others we may fall into a deep rhythm and even a profound joy, when covering the miles well and living out a day with curiosity and attention and gratitude. As a friend said on the phone the other day: it’s how life is: things fall apart, things come back together, things fall apart again. What is falling apart for you right now and what might be coming together?