What then is the implicit agenda?

"One of the odd things about the Christian narrative is that it affirms the worst-case scenario, and at the same time says everything is going to work out wonderfully anyway. It's that paradox that makes it the most hopeful of all religions, in my view at least."  ~Eve

In restructuring our incentives, don't expect them to thank or forgive you because in the present no one’s on the same page or even near existing in the same paradigm.  If you are constantly and concretely experiencing the complexity of woundedness and brokenness in the ‘marginal revolution’ of ‘messy and sublime’ the temptation can be very acute to grab the first line.  

It’s not a ‘coat’ that you can discard for another.  Although that is what almost everyone expects.  Shed the coat, baby, take mine! It’ll look so much better and get everyone off your back.  Finally, in great frustration, I just said quietly: “None of these fit me, thank you.  I have my own coat.(There’s a pile of these coats in my backyard I can’t or won’t wear any longer, in case you’re interested.)

It reminds of that story of the woman who hated her cross so much she decided to turn it in for another.  She began rummaging through the discard pile of crosses.  Quite a few there!

The first she picked was gold with diamonds and beautiful jewels but it was too heavy around her neck.  Cross after cross just didn’t feel right.  Some were too ugly, too small, or too large.  At the back in the shadows she felt around and pulled a small wooden one, chipped and needed a bit of repair but she felt more comfortable with it.  As she put it around her neck she realized it was ‘her’ cross.

• “ ‘Shall I uncrumple this much-crumpled thing?’: Wallace Stevens’ Poetics of Sequence in ‘Sea Surface Full of Clouds.’ ” Wallace Stevens Journal 31.1 (Spring 2007): 43–58

Talk to me more about brokenness. [Or woundedness.]It isn't a metaphor which comes naturally to me and it's easier for me to see the limitations than the insights or beauty it can provide. But I think there's some poetry to be found here if we're willing to look for it:

Are you broken like a wave, coming home on sharp rocks?

Are you broken like a voice deepening into manhood?

Are you broken like the Eucharist?

~Eve