Seeing Through the Eyes of the Brokenhearted
Seeing with Eyes of my own Brokenheartedness
“Those who do not weep, do not see.”
(Victor Hugo, Les Misérables)
“The vast majority of people throughout history have been poor, disabled, or oppressed in some way (i.e., “on the bottom”) and would have read history in terms of a need for change, but most of history has been written and interpreted from the side of the winners.” (Richard Rohr, Franciscan Monk, in his newsletter “Bias from the Bottom”)
Most of us refuse to face the fact that aging brings on a whole variety of disabilities and debilitating diagnoses; often followed by poverty, oppression, and discrimination, bringing this inevitably personal heartbreak closer to home.
And hence we completely miss the most important, accurate, and life-giving way of Seeing this world; currently and throughout history:
“It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short, from the perspective of the suffering.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” (Mahatma Ghandi)
“Safety in a community gets defined by how the most marginal person in the community is treated. We all believe that if people could see into our hearts and know who we really are, we too might be rejected, so we notice how those at the margins are welcomed.” (Emily Sander)
Seeing through the Eyes of the Brokenhearted
Seeing through the eyes of the brokenhearted: This is something that I’ve known intuitively my whole adult life. I’m not sure why, but for this I am deeply grateful. I have refused to live my life in segregated settings, as if I am high and mighty, guaranteed untouchability. Inclusion has always been my default response to life; my place in this world, where I belong. I knew in my bones that it was the right thing to do. But only recently in this polarized and divided society, it has become more and more clear both verbally and visually. I can see it, hear it, and describe it.
Just like the symbol of the open hand that has guided me, I see the symbol of a seeing eye with tears enveloped within a broken heart.
This is in no way a depressing symbol or a negative outlook for me. It is a symbol of wholeness, largeness, and solidarity with those at the bottom, at the edges, in the margins of society, the unseen and unheard, the most vulnerable and the “least of these”. Without a wide open mind, open heart, and open will, without eyes and ears wide open, I’d be seeing and experiencing life with blinders on, seeing only a narrow slice of all that is.
I don’t want to miss any of it. As I see all of the goodness and beauty of life, I also discover my own heart of sadness as I weep with compassion while moving through this world. As we conform to this world, the voices we hear are the loud ones, the winners, the lucky ones, the privileged few, the powerful.
The clanging and clamor of those voices are everywhere making constant and unavoidable noise. I must practice the spiritual discipline of silencing them, being still, and learning to listen for the unheard voices all around us, which is where this life’s true treasures lie, this is where the heart of pain and suffering lives, and it is here that wisdom is given birth and blossoms. This is where the majority of all people live; now and throughout history. And yet so many turn away… with hardened hearts, completely missing life and its fullness and beauty.
These are very significant symbols and principles that have continued to guide my life through the storms and through a myriad of false narratives from culture and its accomplices over the years. The main one, Living with Open Hands, is something that emerged as I began blogging 15 years ago. This is a “Way” to approach life and interact with life in life-giving ways. It is not a belief system or a philosophy as much as it is a guide to check our perspectives and approaches and stay true to being human. Through my experiences and exploration of many types of beliefs and nonbeliefs, this Way has held true as foundational, as a sort of overlay, to see what is in common with other ways of living and believing; a sort of veracity test or heart check.
Too often, organized religion and politics, as they grow and wield power, they inevitably and often unknowingly are corrupted by that power. We can see this over and over throughout history. Some say that religion is the reason for all the wars. I say, if not, religion was never far away from the powers that did start the war. And religion was often used and manipulated to extend or empower empires. Today, in America, this power and influence has again quietly befriended religion over the past 50 years; as wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing usurping Christianity and devouring its sheep.
This blog post is an attempt to describe this symbol that I discovered that has just recently emerged out of the chaos of a politics of violence and a religion that has succumbed to the power and corruption of merging church and state, i.e. Trumpian politics and Evangelical Christians. From history we know this: Power tends to corrupt and ultimate power corrupts ultimately. (Lord Acton, 1834 - 1902)
We have forgotten from whence we have come. We have forgotten the struggle that the vast majority of humanity has endured and still does. We have forgotten who we are because we no longer can see this world from the bottom up, from the edges, from the margins, through a perspective of compassion and empathy; in other words, through the eyes of brokenheartedness, both ours and others.
When Death Comes
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
—Mary Oliver
Blending Two Lenses, Two Mantras
Living with Open Hands as an expression of an open mind, open heart, and open will; inevitably living life with compassion and empathy.
Seeing Through the Eyes of the Brokenhearted, a transformational way of seeing history and the world today; beyond the surface to the principalities and powers along with all of its resulting structural inequalities and systemic oppression.
Living with Open Hands
As already mentioned, the first mantra is a Way of approaching, seeing, and interacting in this world: Living with Open Hands. I have been expressing myself through this blog as I have endured so many storms combined with a constant barrage of illusions and influences in this culture. Open Hands are an expression of an open mind, open heart, and open will; the inner work that comes from connecting with and settling into the silence deep in the center of all things with a wide open heart; listening and waiting and willing.
This long and deep innerwork eventually led me to a paradigm shift, a new perspective on life that illuminates and casts away illusions, breaks through the walls of dogma meant to shelter us from reality and truth, sees through the mirage of all of the conditioning and automatic brainwashings that batter and tatter us from cradle to grave. Truly living with this openness, vulnerability, and honesty that living with open hands brings includes not only an open mind, open heart, and open will but also open eyes and open ears that are able and willing to see and hear the heart beyond the facade of everyday life with compassion and empathy.
~ Compassion has such passion for people that it cannot help but open the heart to “suffer with” the other. (see endnote)
~ Empathy comes from perceiving this world and the heartbreak inherent in it. The person is then willing and able to project oneself into that person’s pain, experiencing it with them and from their perspective. (see endnote)
Wholeness includes the opposites of joy and sorrow, dancing and mourning, happiness and sadness, heartbreak and wholeness.
Seeing with the Eyes of the Brokenhearted
This leads to my second mantra: Seeing with the Eyes of the Brokenhearted. We must go beyond how we interact with the world to the more foundational beliefs and values that are formed by our perspective. In wisdom and truth we grow beyond just “seeing” to “Seeing”. We cannot truly See this world without looking both with the eyes of our own heartbreak and through the eyes of the brokenhearted.
A False Lens of Protection; Security, Comfort, and Certainty
But as we grow and experience pain, suffering, and heartbreak we begin to tell ourselves stories that we wish were true. Stories to ease the fears, anxieties, and uncertainties of the future. We want so much to know for sure. Even though we know that the only thing certain is uncertainty and change. And so we begin to build the wall of protective illusions. Death is probably the greatest terror that is beyond our containment and control, so we build constructs and edifices to man and to the gods to appease man’s fear and the gods’ fearsomeness.
We donn so many protective vices, addictions, and distractions to block out the fears, anxieties, and uncertainties, like
Politics
Philosophy
Religion
Art and Music
Architecture
Fashion
Entertainment
Sports,
And many, many more.
With all of these external influences pounding our minds, battering and tattering our souls, we retreat to look through “rose colored glasses” and tell ourselves distracting stories of comfortableness, security, and certainty to prevent us from looking into the sun of reality and all of the glare of pain and suffering. Don’t get me wrong. Life is beautiful and amazing when we learn to see it without illusion in all of its spectrums of wholeness; goodness and heartbreak, light and darkness, joy and sadness.
In this sense, Heartbreak is not about being broken, but simply the flip side that completes wholeness which is absolutely necessary in order for us to understand the full paradox of life. We cannot be whole without experiencing heartbreak, two sides of one coin. Joy would be hollow without sorrow. Rejoicing would be left meaningless without mourning. And beauty could never be so alive and stunning without the ugliness. Compared with seeing life through rose colored glasses, Seeing life in all of its wholeness is wondrous!
Life is full of surprises. Some are positive but many others may not seem so positive. These surprises, whether positive or negative, are the “stuff” of life that reveals our character. What we do with the good “stuff” is easy: rejoice, laugh, dance, celebrate, or whatever. What we do with the not-so-good “stuff” defines who we are. What we do with it gives our life meaning or despair. BUT WHAT DO WE DO WITH THESE SURPRISES? Our tragedies, broken dreams, failures, losses, etc. can devour us . . . or strengthen us.
“As long as we are mortal creatures who love other mortals, heartbreak will be a staple of our lives. And all heartbreak, personal and political, will confront us with the same choice. Will we hold our hearts open and keep trying to love, even as love makes us more vulnerable to the losses that break our hearts? Or will we shut down or lash out, refusing to risk love again and seeking refuge in withdrawal or hostility.” (Parker Palmer, Politics of the Brokenhearted)
The way of the open heart requires that we FACE ALL of life’s surprises and life’s crashes . . . and learn deeply from them . . . and get up and keep on.
I believe that we all are living with a broken heart, which puts us all in the same boat with all of humankind. I do not mean brokenhearted in any way that diminishes us as human beings. I see it as commonality, solidarity, and equality. I feel that this is also an apt depiction of those that are invisible, marginalized, poor, oppressed, strangers, aliens, orphans, widows, the least of these, those with broken dreams, shattered hopes, or unfathomable loss.
Seeing with eyes of brokenheartedness puts us in solidarity with those that are willing to admit their brokenness rather than puffing themselves up over others. The first will be last and the greatest will be the least according to Jesus. We don’t take him very seriously in America today, unfortunately (check out Hoodwinked & Hijacked). I believe that if we desire to see life as it really is, we must learn to see through the eyes of the brokenhearted, rather than through the rose colored glasses of our homogeneous bubble.
I know for me that when I look at the country and religion of my childhood, that which I have believed in all my life, my heart is broken wide open to see the immorality and corruption; the sheer cruelty, meanness, fear, and hate that is now being allowed, advocated for, voted for, and carried out at the highest level of this once great country. This is the type of brokenheartedness that does not heal. Instead of turning from those that are brokenhearted, sometimes, we that are brokenhearted must turn away in order to guard our own hearts from the principalities and powers that have caused such great heartbreak. I am embarrassed and ashamed of who we have become in America.
In order to see through the eyes of the brokenhearted, we must stand with them. We must learn what they see and where they look and how they feel; because “they” are “us”. Becoming like a child, we must learn alongside them, allowing them to teach us.
The Poor
I grew up in a Christian family and church and got a four year degree in religion, bible, and greek (the language of the new testament). It was very clear to me that the central message of Jesus came from the perspective of being with the poor and downtrodden, those that are willing to admit that their hearts have been broken, people living life without pretense or pride, but humbly open to receive and give. Jesus spoke repeatedly of the poor and despised. When he said blessed are the poor in spirit, the word he used for “poor” was not the word in Greek that meant a slave or an indentured servant but rather a beggar in abject poverty with nothing left to give, a total brokenheartedness.
There are two Greek words translated "poor" in the New Testament. The first one suggests the working poor - those who own little or no property. They describe people who possess very little in the way of material goods and earn what they have through their daily labor.
“But the word that Jesus uses to describe the 'poor' literally means to crouch or cower as one who is helpless - like a beggar, or a pauper, or one in abject poverty, totally dependent on others for help and destitute of even the necessities of life. In Galatians 4:9, it is translated ‘beggarly.’
“When Jesus says, ’Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ he does not mean everybody. He means those who know it. Blessed are those people who recognize their inadequacies and their guilt and their failures and their helplessness and their unworthiness and their emptiness (and their brokenheartedness)—who don't try to hide these things under a cloak of self-sufficiency, but who are honest about them and grieved and driven to the grace of God.”
http://crossroadschapel.com/SermonNotes/SER071209ThePoorinSpirit.pdf
Jesus lived with the poor and despised. He was accused of being a friend of sinners by the elite and religious. His disciples were chosen from among those that were poor fishermen and despised tax collectors. To whom was his birth announced first? The lowly shepherds. Where was he born? In a barn and laid in a farm animal food trough.
It seems that many evangelical Christians don’t take Jesus’ life and example seriously anymore but for those that do, we must learn to see through the eyes of the brokenhearted if we are to see at all. And the way to do that is to learn to read all of history, the story of Jesus, and the bible from below, from the margins, with the perspective of the least of these.
Every ViewPoint is a View from a Point
“The vast majority of people throughout history have been poor, disabled, or oppressed in some way (i.e., 'on the bottom') and would have read history in terms of a need for change, but most of history has been written and interpreted from the side of the winners. The unique exception is the revelation called the Bible, which is an alternative history from the side of the often enslaved, dominated, and oppressed people of Israel, culminating in the scapegoat figure of Jesus himself.“We see in the Gospels that it’s the lame, the poor, the blind, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the sinners, the outsiders, and the foreigners who tend to follow Jesus. It is those on the inside and the top—the Roman occupiers, the chief priests and their conspirators—who crucify him. Shouldn’t that tell us something really important about perspective? Every viewpoint is a view from a point. We must be able to critique our own perspective if we are to see a fuller truth.” (Bias from the Bottom, March 22, 2016, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM)
“There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters from Prison, p.16)
Learning from People with Developmental Disabilities
One of the most profound learning experiences in my life is when I was down and out. I lost everything my american dream deemed valuable; my marriage, my kids (half time), my home, my job, and also my mental health when I was taken by depression. But as we all know, it is the getting up that makes all the difference. For me, I had gotten a new job working with adults with disabilities. And the most profound learning was when I realized that I was no better than anyone that I was working with. We were all in the same place and learning the same stuff about life. Eventually, everyday I would get up and ask myself, what is it that I will learn from these wonderful people today? They became my teachers and have been ever since. Their heartbreak was my heartbreak. And when I became one of the least of these, I finally began to learn and grow and heal.
https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/listening-for-unheard-voices/
Becoming Like a Child and Learning from My Kids
I am a better man because of them.
https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/what-ive-learned-from-my-kids/
Tears are the Natural Expression of the Brokenhearted
"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love." ~ Washington Irving. See also, tears of a man.
Tears are not only powerful but they can be critical for healing. I found that during the times that I was divorced, the most painful times of my life, I had to find ways to make myself cry. I found that I would become so numb that I could no longer feel anything, joy or sorrow. So I discovered a spiritual discipline, more out of desperation than anything else. When I realized that I had shut down to protect myself from such excruciating pain, I also lost all feelings. I was comfortably numb. But that is not what I wanted. I wanted to heal. And I wanted to be alive again. So I would make myself go to places to force myself to remember those times that I missed so greatly. I had to make myself cry in order to come alive again. I have become grateful for such heartbreak because it did not let me forget the excruciating pain of others. I could not forget compassion, how to suffer with others. See also at the end, “The Man Teaching Japan How to Cry.”
The Brokenheartedness of Depression and Mental Illness
One of the greatest heartbreaks is depression and other mental illnesses. I am again grateful that I could experience depression several times during the times my life crashed. The pain of being overcome by darkness cannot be described in words, except that I did not just enter into the darkness, I became the darkness. I could no longer see light. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Hope was snuffed out thoroughly. Death was the only thing I could see and smell and I began to long for it, or anything that would give relief from this inner inescapable suffering. But I knew that if I did not fully experience this pain, then I would not be able to understand the pain of depression in others. It became a transformative experience even though there is no way I could see it at the time.
https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2006/11/06/the-pain-of-depression/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/01/12/anatomy-of-melancholy
The Heartbreak of Prison
A heartbreak I cannot imagine is that of being sent to prison and losing all freedom along with hope for the future. Coming out with a criminal record it is nearly impossible to get jobs, housing, voting, and ever living a “normal” life again. I feel a need to get more involved in order to understand better by re-establishing relationships with ex cons in order to try to understand this world from their perspective. I have seen the heartbreak of families while their loved one is incarcerated and the struggle to get on their feet when they reintegrate into society. There is a lifelong stigma that will follow them until death. “Though only five percent of the world's population lives in the United States, it is home to 25 percent of the world's prison population. 32% of the US population is represented by African Americans and Hispanics, compared to 56% of the US incarcerated population being represented by African Americans and Hispanics. African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.”
There’s an incredible stench of injustice under our noses in the criminal justice system. This is also a heartbreak that we need to understand through their eyes. https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
The Ultimate Brokenheartedness of Suicide
There are 800,000 suicides per year in this world. This is another great heartbreak. For these people, this is a heartbreak that there is no coming back from. For the rest of us, we need to learn to pay attention to them, listen to their voices and their suffering, and be there to just be there. This is what it means to see the world through the eyes of the brokenhearted.
https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#:~:text=Summary,in%202017%20were%20from%20suicide.
Endnotes
The Absolute Necessity of Compassion and Empathy
Seeing this world through the eyes of compassion
- The heart is wide open and vulnerable to feel the pain of others, to “suffer with” them.
- We seek out those that are in pain, those that need someone to be there and feel with them.
Seeing this world through the eyes of empathy
- The heart is open to see a person in great pain and suffering or great calamity
- Provides passion to project oneself into that person’s experience to expose oneself to and embrace their suffering, to walk in their shoes.
“A compassionate city is an uncomfortable city!
A city that is uncomfortable when anyone is homeless or hungry.
Uncomfortable if every child isn’t loved and given rich opportunities to grow and thrive.
Uncomfortable when any group anywhere in the world is marginalized or oppressed.
Uncomfortable when as a community we don’t treat our neighbors as we would wish to be treated.”
(Karen Armstrong, Charter for Compassion)
Respectable Religion?
“Following Jesus is not a respectable religion, and I suspect it was never meant to be. It is a call to truth, justice and liberation for those oppressed, excluded, and disempowered.”
(Diarmuid O’Murchu)
Compassion & Empathy
These seem to be in short supply today although they are undoubtedly the heart and soul of humanity and all religions.
"feeling of sorrow or deep tenderness for one who is suffering or experiencing misfortune," mid-14c., compassioun, literally "a suffering with another," from Old French compassion "sympathy, pity" (12c.), from Late Latin compassionem (nominative compassio) "sympathy," noun of state from past participle stem of compati "to feel pity," from com "with, together" (see com-) + pati "to suffer" (see passion).
empathy (n.)
1908, modeled on German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"), which was coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Greek empatheia "passion, state of emotion," from assimilated form of en "in" (see en- (2)) + pathos "feeling" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer"). A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer's ability to project his personality into the viewed object.The God of Silence Speaks Up
Gordon Hempton has spent the past 30 years warning people about the consequences of the disappearance of natural quiet on Earth, which he calls a “solar-powered jukebox.” And now that the world is a little less noisy, he’s asking us, once again, to listen.
https://www.afar.com/magazine/gordon-hempton-quiet-parks-international-saving-quiet?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR1SJQVN8fiGGNOSgOhQrM1AylBOkdRDaKG6B1NwmcO0-orz6QaUfOiLgvI
The man teaching Japan to cry
Hidefumi Yoshida is a 'tear teacher'. Through the use of sad films, letters and scenery, he claims to have brought 50,000 people to tears – helping to break down cultural stigma surrounding crying in Japan. "My job is to make people feel refreshed through crying," he told @bbc_reel, suggesting that it is a way to relieve stress and even boost the immune system. Ideally people will not simple shed a tear, but wail – because "the harder you cry, the better you feel".
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFK39P_M-yu/
A Truly Human Dilemma
“This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression - and with all this yet to die.”
(Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death)
Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMla61cOMtc
Your Raw and Beautiful Heart
From the deep realization of our own basic goodness we develop a tenderness toward ourselves and others.
This then awakens our heart, an empty heart. "If you put your hand through your chest and feel for it, there is nothing but tenderness. You feel soft and sore, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness. This kind of Sadness does not come from being mistreated. You don't feel sad because someone insulted you or because you feel impoverished. Rather, this experience of sadness is unconditioned. It occurs because your heart is completely exposed. There is no skin or tissue covering it; it is pure, raw meat. Even if a mosquito lands on it, you feel so touched. Your experience is raw and tender and so personal.
"The genuine heart of sadness comes from feeling that your empty heart is full. You would like to spill your heart's blood, give your heart to others. For the warrior, this experience of sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Conventionally, being fearless means that you are not afraid or that, if someone hits you, you hit them back. However, we are not talking about that street-fighter level of fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world touch your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others." (Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior. pp. 33, 34)
Beautiful People
"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. They are made."
(Elizabeth Kubler Ross)
“A person is oppressed when they are held back, either physically or psychologically, from the goals they aspire to, and the norms of society … oppression is closely linked to devaluation and loss of power.” (Al Condeluci, in “Interdependence”, pg. 16)
“Our society is not set up to cope very well with people who are weaker or slower. More important, we are not skilled at listening to the wisdom of those whose life patterns are outside of the social norm.” (Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, p. 46)
”The human eye is always selecting what it wants to see and also evading what it does not want to see. The crucial question then is, What criteria do we use to decide what we like to see and to avoid seeing what we do not want to see? Many limited and negative lives issue directly from this narrowness of vision.” (John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, p. 62)
