I Break So That I May Reveal
As a kid, I loved dinosaurs. To this day, the rhinoceros is my favorite animal at the zoo, because he looks to me like a Triceratops. Every week in grade school, I would insist my mother take me to the Greene County Library to check out the over-sized dinosaur books, with glossy artist renderings of Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, and Tyrannosaurus rex. These were not with the children’s books but rather found in the grown-up section, and as I read them I felt like a real paleontologist. Somewhere along the way, I learned the motto of the Paleontological Society. In Latin, it is Frango ut patefacium. In English, that translates to “I break so that I may reveal.”
I hadn’t thought about that motto for years, but lately it has sprung to mind unbidden. Within the past three months, so much of the world has broken. And the breaking has revealed a lot. Cracked open, we have seen where our weaknesses are, with regard to both our public health and our economic models. The breaking open of the veneer of racial harmony has revealed that we still have so much work to do to render this a land experienced by all as life-giving, sustaining, and free. The continued breaking open of our political divide (How much more can it break?!) reveals that, for a long time, neighbors and friends have viewed our county and its challenges very differently from one another.
And, we see more when the view zooms down to the up-close-and-personal. I don’t know about you, but in some ways the past three months have just about broken me. On a personal level, as these months have gone on, as life has shifted once, twice, ten times, the little cracks and yawning chasms have revealed some things about me of which I’d been, at best, dimly aware. How about you? Have you caught yourself responding to situations in ways that surprised you? Have you heard your own voice and barely recognized who was speaking? Have you experienced an undifferentiated anxiety that has a murky source and no constructive destination? Has your breaking revealed things to you about yourself?
The spiritual question is, of course, “What do we make of this? And, what might God do with it?” The Gospels remind us that Jesus, too, was broken. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’ confidence was shaken as he anxiously sweated like drops of blood. Jesus himself experienced the desolation of abandonment as he cried from the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” As St. Paul adds in 1 Corinthians 11, when Jesus implemented the Last Supper, he told the disciples always to break the bread — which we still do to this day — as a reminder that Jesus himself was broken.
The paleontologists’ motto is “I break so that I may reveal.” Jesus’ own breaking revealed his fragile humanity, but as Peter Abelard first reminded us eight hundred years ago, Jesus’ breaking also and most importantly revealed the fathomless depths of God’s love. By his willingness to undergo the Passion — not in the absence of doubt and anxiety, but in the very face of them — Jesus the Incarnate God revealed that God will go to any lengths, suffer any violence, endure anything for love of us. There is nothing we can experience or encounter in this world absent the God whose love for us birthed the very world.
Most importantly, this is what our present breaking reveals anew for us, whether it is the breaking of the world or our own individual cracks. When we are solid, behind bastion walls and ramparts, it is easy to pretend that we have no need of God, that our own strength can sustain us. When things begin to break, we quickly realize that our walls are as fragile as eggshells. Our breaking reveals our need for God, for a love more subtle than any virus and greater than any strife: a love that picks up pieces and knits them into something new.
In these days, it is worth remembering the lyrics of the great Leonard Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in
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Register for In-Person Worship
Last Sunday, we returned to in-person worship at the Cathedral. Many things have changed in the last few months, but the beauty of the Cathedral remains timeless. So that we can ensure physical distancing guidelines, attendance at in-person worship services is presently limited to 60 worshipers per service and pre-registration is required. If you sign up and services are full, you’ll be placed on a waiting list and contacted if space becomes available. It’s well-worth wearing a mask and waving the Peace to have you back in this beautiful, sacred space!
You can register for the Sunday, June 28, services here:
Sunday, June 28, at 9:00 a.m.
Sunday, June 28, at 11:00 a.m.
Domingo, 28 de junio, 1:00 p.m.
Sunday, June 28, at 5:00 p.m.
If you are in an at-risk category or have concerns about your health or safety, or the health and safety of the people in your household, you are encouraged to consider worshiping with the Cathedral from home, through our live stream services at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. (Spanish) and 5 p.m. (The Well). Our ever-improving live-stream experience will allow you to see the congregation and converse with a priest in real time during the service. You can view the live-stream services here.
A helpful video in which Dean Thompson and Canon Zartman explain the logistics of our in-person worship can be found here.
Para ver este video en español, haga click aquí.
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Cathedral Good Neighbors
The Cathedral is here for you. We have implemented the “Cathedral Good Neighbor” program, and you are likely to receive a phone call or email from a Cathedral Good Neighbor who lives near you. Please let that fellow parishioner know if you need anything at all. You can also contact our Minister for Pastoral Care Jody Gillit or any Cathedral priest. Our contact information is available on the “Staff” page of our website.
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Supporting the Cathedral
Even as we worship from home, the Cathedral is engaged in ministry. Our pastoral care, outreach, worship, and program ministries of the Cathedral carry on, and supporting Cathedral ministries is as important as ever. You can make your offering in any of these ways:
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Visit the Cathedral Give page to find out the many ways you can support our church
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Make an offering or give in other ways using PayPal
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Text the word “Give” to 888-998-1634
Grace and Peace,
The Very Reverend Barkley Thompson, Dean
English