Letting the Light In

I'm tired this week.  Tired of everything and everyone.  I realize I'm being a big baby, but it doesn't change the fact I've reached a point of personal fatigue.  I could go on about the Boy Scouts, healthcare, Transgender bans, Russian spies, national voter registries, and the loss of Spicey on SNL - but I just can't muster any energy to do so this week.  I just don't want to do it.

So, in leiu of actually doing something productive, I decided to pick up this physical book thingy (which almost weighs as much as my tablet, and doesn't have a quarter of the same functionality *stares incredulously at the lazy book laying there doing nothing*).

Violence Unvieled by Gil Bailie ended up on my reading list due to a few recommendations from my small discipleship group.  Again, I had to buy it in paperback, which is fitting considering the topic concerns the brutality of society and the need for sacrifices with which to appease the masses and bring peace.

I wasn't necessarily looking forward to reading it.  Not because of the topic, I just don't like dealing with physical books.  But, I'm tired so might as well go full old school.

I open the book to a page of four quotes - two from the New Testament, one from Yeats, and one from Leonard Cohen.  Yes, Leonard Cohen.

No offense meant to Jesus and Yeats, but it was Cohen's words that floored me:

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in. 

For those of you familiar with Cohen's music, you might remember these lyrics from his song Anthem. I haven't even started reading the book, but I'm already flowing down the river of introspection to the ocean of relief. Yeah, I'm corny like that.

Reading those words - there's so much truth and wisdom - packed in those 4 little lines. 

• Ring the bells that still can ring.  Focus on what I have control over.
• Forget your perfect offering.  Nothing in this world is without fault. Accept it and move on.
• There is a crack in everything. We're all broken. Accept it and move on. 
• That's how the light gets in.  Only by facing the brokenness do we learn how to be better.  And not just generically better, but better in areas that actually matter.

Maybe this cluster of a year (or past few years) is really a blessing.  The hard times have made me really sit down and think about what's important in life.  What's important about me.  Made me evaluate what type of life I really want to have.

Maybe we can realize that the light coming up over the horizon isn't a nuclear mushroom cloud, but an understanding of how we can be better as a society and a country.

Maybe there is reason to be joyful, hopeful and happy during this time of emotionally draining muck in this country.

Maybe we just needed to let the light in.  Apparently, a truckload of extra strength light. 

And, maybe, just maybe...  I might actually read this book.