Some time ago, I was delivering a briefing to trainee police and probation officers, I presented a heartbreaking case of a young man. I asked the trainees to describe to me what hearing about this man’s life made them feel? My question was met with silence. I’m good with silence, so I let it continue. I eventually prompted; “Anyone?” More silence. So I took a direct approach and started to go around the group. The first trainee gave me his response “I don’t feel anything”, delivered with something akin to arrogance and so I continued to go around the group. Still, no one was naming a feeling. To say I was pissed off is an understatement. But I was also despairing. What have we come to when brokness is met with such an absence of feeling.
Broken, always requires our best. Always requires more of us than we know we have and is always deserving of even much more. The broken, I have learned over years, have much to give us. It is they who, one by one and by their own uniqueness, have made me what I am today – that started with being able to feel. Right now, it would seem, we need the broken to teach us as never before….
The broken among us teach us.
What sustains me is this knowledge, that it’s really the broken among us that can contribute a lot to our quest for full, equal justice.
When you’re broken, you know something about what it means to be human. You know something about grace. You learned something about mercy. You learned something about forgiveness. It’s the broken among us that can teach us some things. And knowing that you don’t have to be perfect and complete gives you a way of moving through challenge that would be hard if you think that that’s not something that’s possible.
And so I tell my young officers, you can’t do this work, you can’t be in some of the painful places we’re in, you can’t hold children who’ve been abused, and look into despiring eyes and not be impacted by that.
You’re going to shed some tears. You are. And you’re gonna be overwhelmed, you’re going to get tired, you’re gonna get pushed down — all of those things are going to happen, and it doesn’t mean you’re weak. It doesn’t mean that you’re not up to the task. It doesn’t mean you’re incompetent or incapable. It just means you’re a human being. And that’s what, is exactly what is needed.
And so what sustains me is, in part, this knowledge that I can’t always feel confident and sure and clear; that there are going to be times when it’s uncertain what’s going to happen. And I’ve tried to appreciate that.
We can all in our brokenness be lifted up by the spirit of people who have endured way more. But we must, we must be able to connect with them, see ourselves in them and feel with them. Anything less than this is not our best.
Br. Stephen Morris fcc
