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Ring the Bells


“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There’s a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.” 

by Louise Penny


 As the restrictions for COVID are being lifted, there is a general thirst for the ways things used to be, remembered as the perfect society in the perfect world. We want to get back to doing and being the way we remember life as being. This poem reminds us that life was not perfect, indeed is not meant to be perfect.The pandemic has shown us some of the cracks that were there: racism, poverty, and food vulnerability being just a few. By exposing those and other cracks in our society, it has opened up the way for us to make the necessary changes in our new world to address these problems and others.


Jesus, in Matthew 5:16 said “let your light shine before others“.  I would like you to consider  this in light of what Louise Penny had to say in her short poem. We spend a lot of our time trying to be perfect especially during Lent when we seem to focus on our perceived imperfections. Perhaps what we should be focusing on is our dislike of being vulnerable. Bring vulnerable means admitting there are cracks in our perfection, cracks that can let God’s light into our being and back out through us to the world. No one likes being vulnerable. It is scary. But what it does is open up a crack in our veneer that let’s others. and hence God, in.  I invite you to open up a crack on your veneer this Lent.

Comments

  1. Judy ImrieMarch 22, 2022 at 9:04 AM

    A few cracks in our family history opened up this month, triggered strangely by the war against Ukraine...against democracy itself. A heritage of old deep and difficult wounds from another war opened up in the light of truth without which there can be no reconciliation. Talking happened, healing words were spoken over imperfections that needed to be recognized. Hearts , coming from very different perspectives, were soothed. It give me hope that peace will also rise in defiance against "wars and rumours of wars." Lent is a journey full of twists and turns and rabbit holes...a time to get to the bottom of things. Perhaps it is best described in the words of my favourite plaque: "My housekeeping style is best described as: THERE APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN A STRUGGLE" which could also be said about life in general and hopefully by Easter, order will have been re-established in many ways for all of us. That is what Shalom is, working away in the messiness of life, down in the cracks....'The peace that follows the honest struggle.'

    Thanks Lynn for reminding of that poem I have always loved . Well done as usual!

    Judy Imrie

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