BROKEN TOGETHER

Mark Hall, Bernie Herms
“Marriage is tough. We bring a lot of fairytales to the picture when it comes to marriage. We bring them to the altar with us [thinking]: ‘This is going to be perfect. We don’t have to be apart. We can just wake up together every morning and no one is going to have morning breath. We’re not going to have any problems.’ And then the problems hit and you don’t know where to file those into your picture. . . The idea I’m trying to say is: ‘Can you lay down who you thought I was and love the ‘me’ that is? Can we take this from where we are now and realize that I can’t be that person?’ Only God is going to be able to make this work and broken people can be broken together. To me, it’s probably the most important song on the record.”


Broken Together - Lyrics
What do you think about when you look at me
I know we're not the fairytale you dreamed we'd be
You wore the veil, you walked the aisle, you took my hand
And we dove into a mystery

How I wish we could go back to simpler times
Before all our scars and all our secrets were in the light
Now on this hallowed ground, we've drawn the battle lines
Will we make it through the night

It's going to take much more than promises this time
Only God can change our minds

Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete
Could we just be broken together
If you can bring your shattered dreams and I'll bring mine
Could healing still be spoken and save us
The only way we'll last forever is broken together

How it must have been so lonely by my side
We were building kingdoms and chasing dreams and left love behind
I'm praying God will help our broken hearts align
And we wont give up the fight

Love

Love is such a complicated and confusing emotion. Some people are so sure of what love is, while many others know they are totally lost, when it comes to the subject. I fall into the latter category.

I do not and cannot fully comprehend love. Based on knowledge captured in my stay here on earth I can only share from my experience and probably compliment that experience with what I've read in various books, magazines, articles etc.

It seems that love can be segregated into types and kinds of love.

There's the Agape love, which speaks of God's unconditional love towards us sinners that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross as punishment for our sins. I can not imagine that love and it would be difficult to love like that. Yet...we are ungrateful bastards who choose to continue living in sin, without recognizing how powerful that love is. Perhaps our sojourn here has dulled our senses and made us unwilling and unable to accept that sort of love.

The bible also speaks of Philia, which speaks of brotherly love. I guess that's seeing someone in grief and feeling their pain, wishing there is something you can to to help that person. It the altruistic part of you, the part that makes you want to see people succeed, see people in a better place than they were before. I guess it's part of the Agape love, a derivative of sort...

I just learnt of Storge, which speaks of love for family. I would say that this is the closest to Agape love than the others, especially the love a parent has for a child and, I would hope, a child has for a parent. It's the kind of love that could be considered sacrificing one's needs for the needs of another. However, its never as clear cut as that. When the opinions of others who feel they are the "experts" love, are in conflict with what you are doing, it can make you feel...inadequate...

Then there is Eros, erotic love, the sensual and sexual attraction one feels for another. However, in my opinion, this love does not "just happened". The "just happened" is just sexual attraction that one feels for any one else based on the arousal of the various senses.So I would assume romantic love is a combination of sorts. You are physically attracted someone and you develop a bond or a connection...that grows into a symbiotic relationship where compromises are made so that the attraction is sustained. That sustained attraction then lead to a situation where Philia love is incorporated into the relationship; you want what is best for each other even if it means that all of your needs would not be met. Love is...after all...giving...


One type of love I do not see being mentioned much is self love. It is loving yourself in-spite of the mess you're in. It is not accepting that you can't do better, but having the will to want better and demand better for yourself. Without loving yourself or understanding how to love yourself, it would be impossible to love others.   

Reflections

We often reflect on our lives and wondered how we've reached this point in our lives. If its a good place, we would reflect on the positives things, the high points of our lives, the good moments. It would be a sort of celebratory reminiscence...
If you're in a stagnant place and you feel like you are not where you want to be then its a more serious reflection, a kind of soul searching experience, you start looking at the pros and cons, you look at both the highs and lows. Ultimately, I think, we should use this experience to move to a better place in our lives.

I seem to wallow in self pity, wondering how I've ended up where I am. Perhaps, if I had made certain decisions I would have progressed down an entirely different path. Perhaps I would have been happy then, perhaps...perhaps not...

The fact that there are no do overs, no magical erasers to wipe out the wrong decisions, no way to forget the past...makes it harder to move on with a clean slate. Perhaps there's nothing to move on to...at least the trajectory has stopped at that point...there's no making amends, no more hope that time will heal all wounds, no more chances, the die was cast when the transgressions were committed...the outcome was inevitable.

Some people were never meant to be forgiven...perhaps I'm one of those people...