173. this broken world

I get a call from a friend, a voicemail actually. He tells me he wants to meet. He needs prayer. And in the tone of his voice, I can hear that he is hurt. But he doesn't provide details, this is just voicemail after all.

I am at work and on task with another when I retrieve the message so I cannot return the call until hours later. Once free, I make the call but he does not answer and I leave a message of my own, asking him to call when he can.

I haven't heard back from him yet.

And all afternoon and even now, my mind is divided between what must be done and what he might be going through.

And then I'm reminded.

This is a broken world and we do our best to find beauty where we can, sometimes in the margins, sometimes on the mended plains, sometimes in the fractures themselves. We band together to keep the decay at bay. We do our best to diagnose and to mend, but we are surgeons with well-meaning, but careless, cotton hands.

And them I'm reminded.

I've been seeking after the spiritual kind of life, and what could be more spiritual than the humbling act of prayer. A deed so small and weak as to appear insignificant. But behind it, the possibility of miracles and wonders, the opportunity for the divine to break through.

And them I'm reminded.

There's so much I just don't understand.