Let your heartbreak be your guide
By: Kris Vieira
Tags: Christianity, Christmas, Sermons, Advent

I wanted to start today with a story.

A few years ago, I was invited to give a talk at an old church in London. This particular church had a very intriguing history; in the 1990s, it was bombed by the IRA. After being rebuilt, the Bishop of London decided to turn it into a Center for Peace and Reconciliation. Today, it is a place for many young seekers who may not always feel at home in the Church, but who find a home in that particular church, as they seek to find a spirituality that can help them to address some of the wounds of our world.

After the talk, a young woman approached me and asked if she could speak with me. We went outside and sat on the floor of a big Bedouin tent located in the church’s courtyard. She had questions that she wanted to talk about, some serious questions. Questions not so unusual for a person her age. Questions about what a young person is to do with one’s life in our seemingly broken world. Questions about how to respond to everything that is not working in our world without getting paralyzed by overwhelm and worry. Questions about living with integrity and decency. Questions about our future, and the fact that sometimes it feels like the future is being stolen from our youth, by all of us who so willingly dismiss any dreams of a better tomorrow as impractical, as soon as we realize that any real societal change will require us to change.

And so, we sat there on the floor of that Bedouin tent and talked for a while. At some point in our conversation, as we talked about her specific vocation and calling, and how people often encouraged her to follow her passion and do what makes her feel good, I remembered the advice of one of my own mentors. He said — and I’m sure he was responding to a famous ‘follow your bliss’ bumper sticker from the 1980’s still seen on many cars — “Don’t follow your bliss, look at the world and see where following our bliss has gotten us to, instead, follow your heartbreak.” So that’s what I said to her: “Look at the world, see what breaks your heart, and let your heartbreak be your guide!”

I largely forgot about that conversation until months later when I received a message from her. She said that she had sat with that “what breaks your heart” question for a long time until she could not sit with it any longer. Somewhat frustrated, she turned on the TV and saw the stories of Syrian refugees arriving in the Greek Island of Lesvos. Women, children, men, all scared and broken and some barely alive. Escaping the violence of war, hoping that they can survive the journey across the ocean, hoping for a new life. When she saw that, she knew that she needed to do something about it. Immediately, she got on the internet, bought a ticket, and without telling a soul, went to Lesvos the next morning to be there for those who were reaching the shores of the island. Being there broke her heart and brought her to her knees. But it also gave her a new life and a new joy. Not a false kind of joy, that is a result of avoiding the discomfort. But rather a joy that knows difficulties and heartbreaks and yet still survives. A joy that is an assurance that you are doing what you were born to do, an assurance that you are saying yes to the person you are meant to be.

This young woman eventually went back to London and helped organize her friends and colleagues at the church where we met, helping to turn that church into a training center to prepare people to go and serve in refugee camps and to became advocates for refugee families to the UK, often unwelcome there.