the center holds

Way back in 1987, I released an album called Not Quickly Broken.

The title came from Ecclesiastes 4:12:

“A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

The album cover showed a braided cord. The outer strands were worn and beginning to separate. The strand through the center remained whole.

It held.

At the time, that image felt more like hope than truth. There were loose threads everywhere in my life. Family relationships were fraying. Some friendships felt conditional. I saw myself as one strand and family and friends as other cords. I thought that if we wrapped ourselves tightly enough around one another, we might become strong enough not to break.

It was a beautiful idea—and a heavy responsibility to place on people managing the loose ends of their own lives. We reached for one another. We pulled. We tangled. On good days, we tried to hold each other together. On bad days, we became coarse and frayed by fear, longing, and need.

I did not yet fully understand Spirit as the center of who I was, or as the center around which our relationships could anchor.

I thought the center was me—or at least the self I had built from ego, fear, accomplishment, and the opinions of others. I wrapped myself around that identity and asked the people in my life to hold it in place.

Make me happy. Make me better. Make me whole. Make me safe. That is a mighty ask of another human being. I did not yet understand that one fraying strand could not make another whole.

It took me years to recognize that we are not called to hold one another together. We can support each other. We can wind and weave our lives together. But neither of us can be the center for the other.

Spirit is the center, within ourselves and together.

I still lose sight of that. I wrap myself around approval, achievement, fear, or another person. I can tie the whole arrangement into an impressive knot and call it personal growth.

But Spirit does not become tangled with me. Divine Love remains whole, uncut, and steady.

That truth has changed the way I understand relationships. We do not become strong by wrapping ourselves more tightly around one another and hoping nobody moves. We become strong when entwined with Divine Love.

We are still human. We fray. We misunderstand one another. We sometimes pull in opposite directions with remarkable determination. But difference does not have to mean separation.

When Spirit is at the center, we have somewhere to return. We can listen, tell the truth, forgive, and remain. We can work the loose fibers back toward one another without asking either person to become the source of the other’s wholeness.

Nearly forty years later, I look back at that album cover and see how hopeful I was. I thought the unbroken strand represented the person I hoped to become—strong enough to hold everything and everyone together. I also thought it represented others holding me together.

Now I see that the image was telling the truth before I knew how to name it. The unbroken center is not my ego trying harder or another person.

It is Spirit. It is Divine Love within me that is constant, even when I feel broken, disconnected, and—dare I say—disCORDant. It is the Love weaving us together as we join around it.

The outer strands may wear thin. They may pull apart until only the finest wisps remain.

But Love does not unravel when we do.

The center holds.