Broken and Beautiful

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Every once in a while I come across a newspaper article with a message that's so hard to beat.  In fact, this one made me think, "Wish I had thought of that."   I refer to the article "Brokenness lets us see where true beauty lies" by Mary DeTurris Poust published in the February 14-27 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.  Being a lover of sea shells and especially found of conch (whelk) shells be they Queen from Turks and Caicos or Channeled and Knobbed from Cape Cod waters, I found her use of broken conch shells to make a critical point about beauty and our pursuit of physical and spiritual perfection to be ingenious and so very appealing.  She begins by marveling at the broken conch's "twisting, turning, spiraling in that gorgeous and mysterious way that sea shells do."

She then says, beautifully: "We are all shattered in one way or another.  We are all incomplete, missing pieces here and there.  But we are all beautiful.  In fact, we are more beautiful because of it.  Who wants polished perfection that belies the truth of what's inside when you can have the raw power of beauty that's broken because it has lived and loved and lost and carried on in spite of it all?  Be broken and be beautiful."

As she puts it, "Some of God's most beautiful creations are cracked and dulled and hobbled by the pounding surf of daily life."  Like the conch that gets broken on the rocks to reveal "soft turns and intricate work on the inside," we are much the same.

The author asks an important question: "Can we begin to see our brokenness as a blessing rather than a curse, a beauty mark rather than a scar?  It can happen only when we fully place ourselves in God's hands and accept once and for all that we are indeed wonderfully made, even with - or maybe because of - our flaws and weaknesses, our wrinkles and quirks, our sins and struggles..." 

Henceforth, when we walk a Mashpee beach - especially now with spring being not too far away - and we find a broken conch, clam or mussel shell, or perhaps a beat-up oyster shell, we might wonder if it mirrors us.  It probably will, and that's okay.  It's just a remember that we're broken and beautiful.

Deacon David Pierce