The Breaking and the Grace
Jeffrey Angelson
Why do some people seem to awaken in an instant while others are slowly reshaped by struggle? And if grace is freely given, why does it so often arrive through heartbreak, failure, and surrender?
This question stayed with me after a discussion about grace.
Some shared stories of people who appeared to wake up suddenly. No practice. No seeking. No spiritual path. One woman reportedly lost her sense of a separate self while simply waiting for a bus.
Yet even in that story, the initial event was not the end. It took years for her to come to terms with what had happened, to stop fearing it, and eventually to recognize it as a gift rather than a loss.
I don’t doubt such things happen.
Yet I’m equally struck by the countless stories that unfold another way.
A person struggles.
Fails.
Searches.
Loses.
Gets humbled.
As the saying goes, “Be humble, or life will humble you.”
Not as a punishment, but as a softening.
Rumi wrote, “Break your heart until it opens.”
The opening may be grace.
The breaking may be grace too.
Sometimes the opening is sudden and the surrender takes years. Sometimes the surrender comes first and the opening follows.
For me, surrender has become one of the deepest spiritual truths. Not surrender as defeat, but surrender as letting go of the need to grasp life with the mind. I had to surrender to the fact that I don’t need answers for everything. That I cannot put the totality of life into words. That there are mysteries no explanation can contain.
Perhaps there is no formula. No amount of effort guarantees anything. And yet life often seems to wear down our certainty, our resistance, and our insistence on being the author of everything.
Years ago, I quit smoking. I tried many times. Then one day something gave way. Not intellectually. Not as a decision. My entire being surrendered.
I can’t honestly say I made that happen.
But I also can’t say the years leading up to it had nothing to do with it.
Maybe grace arrives suddenly.
Maybe it has been arriving all along.
In the longing.
In the heartbreak.
In the failed attempts.
In the surrender.
And perhaps grace is not something we achieve or earn. Perhaps it is what becomes visible when we stop demanding certainty, loosen our grip on needing life to make sense, and become open enough for something beyond our understanding to reveal itself.
One thought before you post it: the sentence “I had to surrender…” may invite pushback from Sheri because of last night’s discussion. If you want to sidestep that entirely, you could change it to:
“There came a surrender to the fact that I don’t need answers for everything.”
Dan Kilpatrick
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Jeffrey Angelson
Dan,
I didn’t look at it from that perspective initially, but I think I see what you’re getting at.
When Rumi says, “Break your heart until it opens,” what is he actually pointing to? Is there truly a heart that breaks and then opens, or is that simply a way of describing something that cannot really be put into words?
Perhaps much of what we call an event is thought drawing lines through a seamless movement and giving certain moments special significance. Looking back, we naturally say, “First this happened, then that happened, and then something shifted.”
Yet maybe the “breaking” isn’t an event at all.
Maybe it is the collapse of resistance. The ending of the struggle to make life conform to our ideas of how it should be. In that sense, the heart doesn’t literally break open. Rather, whatever stood in the way of what already is begins to fall away.
At least that’s what comes to mind as I sit with your question
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Dan Kilpatrick
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Jeffrey Angelson
Dan,
I think I see what you’re pointing to. In my own experience, when the effort to escape the pain relaxes, the suffering often lessens and the thought patterns lose some of their grip.
I’m not sure I’ve fully understood it yet, but I do see something true in what you’re saying.
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