Whole, Not Broken
Christopher Reeve had everything going for him. He was handsome and athletic and famous for playing Superman in the movies. He had a lovely family and plenty of money that he’d made as a movie star. Really, things could hardly have been better.
Until he was in a horse bock riding accident that damaged his spine and left him paralyzed below his neck. He couldn’t move his hands or feet, let alone play a superhero who could jump tall buildings in a single bound. He was, in a profound way, broken.
But in many other ways, he was deeply whole. He had a family who loved him and believed in him. And he found in his Unitarian Universalism a reminder that one way we can build wholeness for ourselves is by doing what we can to build wholeness for others.
So Christopher and his wife Dana dedicated themselves to trying to make life better for other people who had spinal cord injuries. They raised money to help people get things they needed like ramps and vans that could carry wheelchairs. And they raised money for research that might help people with spinal cord injuries.
Christopher Reeve eventually died from the complications of living with his injury, but his living taught a lot of people about what can be whole when things get broken.
Brave Love
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Adorning almost every Protestant church is a cross—inside, outside, over the altar, in the vestibule, in the minister’s office, and sometimes many stories high on top of the building. Read more →
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
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What must it have been like for folks living through World War I, 1914–1918? The horror of that war is still something I struggle to understand. Read more →
An Apology
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In the January 2015 “Transformation” edition of Quest, I had a sermon titled “Transformation vs. Acceptance.” In that sermon I gave passing mention to Jane Rzepka for the concepts I was writing about. Read more →
Human Feelings of Brokenness
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We often feel so alone and isolated in our very human feelings of brokenness. Read more →
Broken
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Have you ever come to a place in your life where everything is broken? Not only that, but broken by you? Read more →
Midori and the E Strings
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When Midori Goto was three years old her grandmother gave her a 1/16 violin for her birthday. Her mother and grandmother sensed that music was one of her gifts, and they were right. Read more →
From Your Minister
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According to some folks, everything wrong in this world is because of one disobedient woman who listened to a snake. She just had to eat that apple, and then everything that was whole became broken. We were all doomed. Read more →
REsources for Living
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One of the most important lesson we learn—and try to teach our kids—is that when something goes wrong or breaks, we need to take a deep breath and figure out how to fix it. Read more →
