We Try and We Fail -or- Observations On How We Mostly Mean So Well and Somehow Seem To Still Fall Miserably Short in Helping One Another

“What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone’s heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone’s hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don’t really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn’t have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.”
-from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

So badly we want to make things better. We want to tell each other good things and assure each other it will be all right. We want to make each other smile and breathe deep sighs of relief. We want things to be right and good for everyone.

We try. We try. We try.

We fail. We fail. We fail.

We cannot break through our skin. We cannot fix things. Using all of our will, all of our passion, and all of our strength, we still cannot make these things stop.

Instead of helping, sometimes we hurt each other. Our best intentions quickly become our most wounding weapons.

We want to fix things. We are frustrated.

We are filled with love, real, good, whole love, and we have no idea how to use it. Love is too much for us to handle. We cannot find adequate ways to dispense it. So we bang on things like pots and pans, as loudly as we can. We shout loud from the inside out. We clench our jaws shut and tighten our fists. We say as many things as we can and never articulate what it is we mean. We love and are loved, and that is too much for us.

We try so hard to mean something to one another. We say and do as many things as we can to communicate the love that we feel for everything deep inside of us and we try to make it all have meaning.

We are disappointed. We are inefficient and inarticulate.

We want to relate and connect; we want to be one. But we are too different and too scattered. We think and hurt differently. We become too busy trying not to be hurt too badly by each other’s bent and broken methods of flinging around love.

Thank God that there are glimpses. Thank God that there are moments. Thank God that sometimes the clouds part and sometimes things are clear. Thank God for what happens in the simplicity of silence. Thank God for honesty. Thank God that we can admit that we are not well. Thank God for hope that we might be well. Thank God for hope that we might be able to properly receive and dispense this love that we cannot handle.

God, make us silent more. Make us search each other’s eyes more deeply and try to know what we can only mess up when we try to say. When we hurt each other, help us to breathe deep and see through it all to the love. Help us recognize all that is broken and give us hope for all that might be made right. When we try, and when we fail; when we want to fix things and when we are frustrated; when we are disappointed, inefficient, and inarticulate; be all that we are not. Allow our smiles to mean more. Allow our best efforts to break into success more often. Allow us to heal and help one another. Help us build each other up and carry each other along even when we consistently fail each other. May we have more of your silence, more of your love, and more of your meaning where our mess is insufficient. Amen.