Fractured Reflections/Broken Mirrors

[Mark Dohle]

Fractured Reflections/Broken Mirrors​

“We know what is happening in the neighborhood, in our neighbor’s home
but we do not know what is happening within us”.-Pope Francis​

I will from a few times a year, have the experience of the ground I am standing on disappearing, and I find myself inwardly floundering. I can’t quite name the experience but it is very unpleasant. I am not sure I handle it well, but it does pass in a few hours.

To feel rootless and adrift, is hard for me to embrace, but what else is there to do? As much as I would like to figure everything out, and have the answer, it will not happen. Over time I have come to accept the reality of how little I do know, and my faith is not going to bring me out of this experience. It will, however, help me to stay in the boat, trying to be calm, and praying, no matter how poorly I do it.

It is during moments like these that I feel my inner fragmentation most strongly. It is not like the feeling of going under, but of simply being caught up in a state of inner vertigo. I know this says nothing actually, but still that is how I feel.

If there is a positive side to this, it is the fact that when in this state I find it very hard to size up others, the compulsion is for a short time, gone. I guess that could be considered freeing in a certain sense.

Perhaps the “compulsion to size up others” is a ploy on my part to keep me from looking inward in an honest manner. Which I find can be very difficult. For blind spots, well, are blind after all. Yet, when I can see my own fragmentation in others, it is less angst-laden than if I experience it myself, without the luxury of judging others.

So I believe it is a grace when this very uncomfortable experience is more or less forced upon me. It is like a trapdoor opens and I find myself in the cellar, an often dark one.

My faith can often feel like a small light in a very large, dark, cold place, but it is there shining away. I leads me along, even if I do a lot of stumbling. It seems to open up avenues of empathy and compassion for others.

How is it that we can deal with this inner world at all? God is not a magic man in the sky that atheists so love to stamp believers with. Nor does God seem to care how comfortable I am at any one moment. However, I have learned that each inner state, if observed, and listened to, is a teaching, a correction, and a disciplining from an Infinite Mind, which is loving, kind, and seeks only the wellbeing of all His children.

Growth into freedom is a slow process, and there are times when I wish it was speeded up a bit. Yet I also know that I am the one who makes the process slow, and most likely more arduous than it needs to be.

I do believe that the crosses I create by my own seeking to avoid ‘truth’, are actually heavier than the ones willed by God. So I do stumble more than running the way towards God, yet the mercy of God endures forever, and hopefully, the more I learn that the more compassionate I will be towards others, and most difficult, towards myself.-Br.MD