The Resetting of Broken Bones

Lovers
Originally uploaded by Adagio.

I was explaining to a friend that my use of the term ‘baggage’, in yesterday’s post, came about because it was the term that Ireland had used in his poem. It is not actually a term I like.

Apropos my explanation, I remembered a quote by Thomas Merton that I had read several years ago. The concept it presents resonated very deeply with me at that time. I had completely forgotten about it. Its sudden retrieval from the dark recesses of my brain was a timely and welcome occurrence.

As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with each other, because this love is the resetting [of a Body] of broken bones. Thomas Merton

The notion of broken bones evokes a sense of compassion with which to frame ourselves, and others. It infers past injury and pain. A broken bone is a very real thing.

What is very strong for me is the suggestion that it is our very contact with each other that is the catalyst for suffering. If two people, each with broken bones, interact with each other for long enough, sooner or later those bones will make contact and the friction will awaken pain. And it is those with whom we are in closest contact that we touch most often. Those with whom we interact shallowly are unlikely to get close enough to us to rouse pain.

There is a notion (or perhaps it is a rumour?) that a bone that has broken and mended is all the stronger for having done so. Be that fact or fiction, I feel encouraged by the knowledge that bones do heal, eventually.