I almost didn’t go in.
It was another temple on another busy street. Then I saw the orange cones on big pieces of plywood going up the stairs.
That’s when I realized this temple was unlike any other I’d seen. It was under repair.
And it wasn’t just the stairs. Orange cones sat like strange gnomes everywhere around the grounds.
The temple was full of ladders and shovels and damage. All kinds of damage.
Toppled monuments.
Rogue rocks.
Buddhas broken into pieces—some of which had been repaired . . . .
Many of which had not.
Had this been caused by an earthquake? An angry knot of teens?
I don’t know—just as we often don’t know what kind of damage every other human being we meet is carrying around, or what might have caused it.
Because as we know, some scars are visible. Many are not.
As I wandered around the wreckage, I remembered something that had been made clear to me over the past few years—healing is not a passive verb. It’s an active one, which means when life leaves us in a state of upheaval, it’s all about the repair.
Repair takes time, intention, effort, patience, and vision.
As I stood in that quiet space, I realized something—we are all temples under repair.
I know temple language can be fraught for many, but the kind of temple I’m referring to has nothing to do with corrosive shame and everything to do with becoming the best versions of ourselves. The fullest. The strangest. The most radiant.
Because even in its current state of ruin, that temple possessed a holy and luminous spirit that moved me to tears.
And yet the damage was undeniable.
And isn’t that just like us and like life? Sometimes, we are radiant and beautiful.
Sometimes, we feel broken beyond repair.
Sometimes, life brings marvels and joys.
Sometimes, it bewilders us.
Just yesterday, I watched a 5-year old boy hit his little brother in the arm for no apparent reason while his parents weren’t looking. When the older brother returned to munching on his potato chips, the younger brother stared at him, as if asking, Why?
It’s the question so many of us ask when life wallops us or breaks us and we are powerless to stop it.
Yes, Leonard Cohen says that’s how the light gets in, but my God, how it can hurt.
Destruction can happen so quickly, and often without thought, whereas construction and the re-pairing of this with that take commitment, courage, and care.
Which is why it is so important to find spaces that bring us a sense of peace and comfort, and faces that are full of kindness and compassion.
Because they remind us to get busy and do the work of repair without ever forgetting we are, at our core, holy beings. Beings who are radiant, tender, fierce. Who can live light and shine.