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| New birdfeeder |
When I returned home from school a few days ago,
Den was quite animated.
"You just missed it!
A three hundred pound black bear
just climbed the huge oak tree by the back porch!
He didn't stay there long--
must be hard to keep that much weight up a tree."
When we walked around the house,
the just-purchased-last-week birdfeeder was broken
and the flowering crab that had held the birdfeeder
had another broken branch.
Bears can be a mixed blessing.
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| Flowering crabapple with newest broken branch |
When we visited Tanzania,
we heard the story
of how in the 1960s,
the Australian government
wanted to help the people of Tanzania
by giving them horses.
When the horses arrived,
they were hard to control
and many escaped
and disappeared into the bush
where they soon died from tsetse fly bites.
Both governments were disappointed.
The Australians had sent the horses,
unbroken as requested.
The Tanzanians replied,
"Why would we have wanted broken horses?"
Broken.
Our government is broken.
Last week, I was reminded
that I have no right to complain
unless I have been praying for the people who govern me.
Guilty.
Now I find myself praying
"Father God, give the people in government wisdom
and help them to do what is right...
but I am cynical.
Lord, I believe.
Help my unbelief."
I am also broken.
Probably you are, too.
We agree with Paul's letter to the Romans,
"I want to do what is right, but I don't do it.
Instead, I do what I hate."
Who would want a broken horse?
Ah! Who would want a tamed horse?
I think of Saint-Exupery's masterpiece
The Little Prince,
the story of a small boy
who visits Earth to understand it better.
The Fox wants to be tamed by the Little Prince
because "one only understands the things that one tames,"
and so the fox allows himself to be tamed,
to be broken.
In this delayed spring, post-Easter world,
my brokenness can be understood
by the Visitor who created me
and gives me grace.
I am broken,
forgiven,
loved.
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