PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

February 24, 2021

BROKEN

For over fifteen years bestselling author Louise Penny has been writing her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries.  Loyal fans have made the residents of the obscure village of Three Pines a part of their family. After reading her sixteen novels, I think they might also be understood as a study of how people deal with brokenness in their lives.  Penny describes both negative and positive responses.  The murderers who Gamache tracks down represent negative responses.  Armand is an example of responding positively.  One of the inspector’s recurring observations is “Things are strongest where they’re broken.”

One form that brokenness can take is loss.  In her first novel, Still Life, Myrna who owns the bookstore in Three Pines and is a retired counselor, quotes from a book by Brother Albert entitled Loss.  “’His theory is that life is loss,’ said Myrna after a moment.  ‘Loss of parents, loss of loves, loss of jobs.  So we have to find a higher meaning in our lives than these things and people.  Otherwise we’ll lose ourselves.”  If one can find such higher meaning then one’s life can be stronger.

Silouan in his The Pilgrims Odyssey podcast for February 9, 2021 shares about his battle to overcome suicide which grew out of a plane crash while in the Marines.  The critical point came in his struggle when sitting at a restaurant table he wrote the following:

Took a storm

To crack the mortar

The stone, the aged clay

The walls I’d built to shield myself

From rains I feared to face

Took a storm

To clear the rubble

The remnants of my home

To find the lost foundation

Poured before I dwelt alone

And the waters flow

So today

I think I’ll swim.

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes: “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom. 5:3-5) This text might well describe Gamache’s understanding of brokenness and Silouan’s response the loss he experienced in his life as a result of his plane crash if one were to replace “suffering” with “brokenness.”

For all the Louise Penny fans I hope this article would encourage you to take another look at her novels from the perspective of brokenness.  For those who would like to know more about Silouan’s struggle with suicide and PTSD, I would encourage you to check his The Pilgrims Odyssey podcast for February 9th.  You might also check out his podcast for February 19, “Moving America’s Soul on Suicide.”

As you experience brokenness in your life may it make you stronger and may it produce a hope that will not disappoint.  We are all in this struggle together.