(Sermon only) The Power of Heartbreak Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley August 2, 2026

The New York Times featured a long

roundt discussion re recently.

Three researchers talking about why why

the Gen Z generation is having sex less

often than any previous generation.

Millennials, too.

It's been a steady decline.

And as you might imagine, for something

so big and so complex, it's multicausal.

There are a lot of factors at play.

One of the researchers

of this project had talked to a group of

young people at

for marriage

said the comment made her really sad.

Heartbreak, she said, is something

painful and definitely not something to

wish for.

But she added, heartbreak had been

formative for her.

Heartbreak had taught her about

resilience,

how to handle her anger.

Heartbreak had connected her to all

kinds of great works of art.

So much of human art

features heartbreak.

Heartbreak, she argued, creates the

friction needed to be transformed.

Carter Sherman was talking about the

kind of heartbreak of romantic love.

But there's so many kinds of heartbreak.

Brokenheartedness is a part of the human

condition.

So the story that I told this morning,

I was sure I had heard before. I had

read it before. I had seen it before. I

was sure of it. And so I went to look

for it on the internet. And I put in, as

one does in the search engine, so many

terms. broken heart story grandmother

torn heart, ripped heart, crumpled

heart. I just it just kept going on and

on and on. I couldn't find it.

Instead, I found

I'm not going to say hundreds, but many,

many, many versions of a story used in

Girl Scouts and ESL classrooms and

preschools all over the country to

illustrate the impact of unkind words

and bullying.

It was the same story with different

people. Jordan, Jimmy, Haley, Jesus.

Different kids experiencing what happens

when they hear belittling words from

their parents, from their teachers. One

of the versions has a bus driver piling

on

their friends.

All these people are calling children

lazy, dumb, making fun of their hair,

their clothes.

refusing to sit by them at lunch.

The names and the genders varied, but it

was always the same lesson. Ultimately,

we need to be kind

because mean words and actions leave a

mark.

The lesson over and over in all of these

stories was it's really hard to fix a

broken heart.

And once the construction paper that

they had been using to illustrate this

has been wrinkled, it it is really

difficult, impossible to get it to

smooth back out to its original shape.

So, we're going to try something. We're

going to have a little art project in

honor of all of these stories. You may

notice that there are purple sheets in

your pews. At the end of the pews,

there's a basket with little purple

sheets of paper

and some pens. Whoever's sitting at the

end, if you could grab some paper and

pass it around.

Where's the glitter?

>> There's no glitter. There was no glitter

in church.

>> We've talked about this. No glitter.

Okay. Does everyone have a piece of

paper?

This is a simple simple assignment.

Draw a heart on [snorts] your purple

sheet of paper.

A simple heart. No glitter, no sparkles,

no pompoms,

just a heart.

We're in church. It does not need to be

perfect.

Everybody have a heart.

What a phrase that was. Everybody have a

heart.

>> Look at your heart.

Your sweet, unblenmished heart. Hold it

in your hand.

This is the hard part. Think of

something that made your heart hurt.

That broke your heart in some way.

Now crumple that piece of paper

and hold that crumpled sheets [snorts]

in your hands.

How does that feel?

Next. Smooth it back out.

Take your time. Nice and smooth.

And I'd ask you if you want to, you

don't have to write a word or a phrase

that doing that

evoked in you

or a word or phrase of comfort that you

need right now. Write that on your

heart. If you can't think of anything

right now, there's plenty of time. I'm

going to keep talking.

As the story about the kids who were

bullied makes clear, as the stories that

you probably just replayed in your mind

make clear,

painful words linger long after the

speaker has forgotten them.

Telling children to be kind, to consider

the impact of their words is very

useful.

But the story can't end there

because

people will be mean.

messages that we've heard from our

parents,

from our teachers these days, from

social media, make us want to crumple

into a tiny little ball.

Our hearts get hurt over and over again.

No one no one is immune.

And it's not just words.

A friend stops returning our calls

without explanation. We don't get a job

that we wanted.

We watch our neighbors being deported.

People we love die too young.

The world catches fire.

And our grief that makes our hearts

crumple and wrinkle isn't just about

what we had and lost.

It's also about what we missed out on.

The way that life feels so often unfair.

All that means is that we move through

life, all of us, with broken, crumpled,

wounded hearts.

No amount of chastity can prevent it.

As long as we're alive, suffering and

grief are unavoidable.

Let me be clear here. I don't mean to

suggest that suffering is good for you.

Friedrich Nichi's claim that what

doesn't kill you makes you stronger

needs to be retired from public use.

Pop singer Kelly Clarkson made that

phrase into a boppy, catchy earworm of a

song that has over 8 million plays on

Spotify.

No, sorry, not 8 8 million, 800 million

plays on Spotify. So, it's a popular

message,

but it's a lie.

Our culture glorifies strength and

fearlessness. We're taught to see

adversity as a forge for building

character, a chance to kick ass and

emerge tougher.

And we're expected

to be able to handle our pain and our

struggles alone.

And to be resilient no matter what.

I don't believe that suffering

necessarily leads to personal

empowerment.

So often it leads to exhaustion.

Sometimes we get jagged and sharp from

the pain and we hurt people because

we're hurting.

But suffering can also with help lead to

something more enduring.

Humility,

softness,

respect for life's fragility.

Not always,

but loss and grief can break us open to

something bigger, to something deeper.

Leonard Cohen saying, "There's a crack

in everything. That's how the light gets

in."

That line's been said so often that it

almost feels like a cliche,

but we repeat it because it's true.

Forget your perfect offering. Don't

lament the break. Everything and

everyone is cracked. Our imperfections

aren't failure, but an opening for

growth, an opening to the light.

Jewish teachings also include frequent

reminders about the importance of a

broken open heart.

Notice the stylistic, the linguistic

shift there. a broken open heart.

In one story, a disciple asks a rabbi,

"Why does the Torah tell us to place

these words upon your heart?

Why does it not tell us to place these

holy words in our heart?"

The rabbi answered, "It is because we

are as we are, our hearts are closed and

we cannot place holy words in our

hearts. So we place them on top of our

hearts and there they stay until one day

the heart breaks and the words fall in."

Imagine that. This story assumes that we

are meant to be broken.

Perfection is not the goal. Our cracks

and tears open us to the holy.

Just take a quick look at your own paper

heart again.

I probably am stretching the metaphor

now, but but your paper heart still

looks like a heart.

It's wrinkled.

It's not pristine,

but in smoothing it out, you helped it

heal.

It's not pristine because you don't get

cured from heartbreak and grief. There's

no magic pill.

Because there is a difference between

being cured and being healed.

Cures have a specificity that healing

does not. Antibiotics cure infection.

We hope surgery and radiation can cure

cancer. Drugs can cure a host of

problems. Malaria, high blood pressure,

headaches.

The procedures and the drugs focus on

the removal of a specific problem.

They don't so much heal as fix in an

almost mechanistic way.

very useful, not very spiritual.

Healing is more uncertain,

requires time, moves in a nonlinear

fashion, often needs multiple steps, and

even then can be incomplete.

Some days we are capable of newness.

Other days old patterns reemerge.

Healing is diffuse and comes from many

sources.

Poetry can heal.

So can chocolate chip cookies.

Therapy.

Holding your sister's hand.

Listening to the waves on the sand.

Healing is holistic.

But healing

never returns us to our original state.

were changed in the healing. Left with

marks and scars, but offered new

insights, fresh understandings,

broken open, transformed,

perhaps more attuned to the suffering of

others,

able to offer a hand when someone else

is hurting.

In her book, Traveling Mercy's, Anne

Lamad says, "The world sometimes feels

like the waiting room of the emergency

ward,

and that we who are more or less okay

for now need to take the tenderest

possible care of the more wounded people

in the room until the healer comes.

You sit with people, you bring them

juice and graham crackers.

And Lamont is on to something. That's

what all spiritual traditions teach,

including ours. That's what spiritual

communities thrive, strive for. Forget

eliminating your pain.

Lean into it. Don't run from suffering.

Refriend it.

Take the sharp edges of heartbreak and

sculpt it into a gentle connection

to other people's sorrow.

Reach out.

Bring people juice and graham crackers.

Sit with them as they begin to heal.

Or,

and this might be harder for some of us,

okay, maybe it's just me.

Accept the juice and crackers.

Ask for help.

These lessons are true for us

personally.

They're true for our community here.

They're also true for bigger

communities, for nations.

Martin Luther King Jr. understood that

brokenheartedness

was a fact of life. His

own work with the civil rights movement

faced profound setbacks and endured

constant state sponsored violence.

And at times of incredible loss when all

progress seemed lost,

King reminded people that failure is as

much a fact of life as success,

disappointment as likely as fulfillment.

He urged them. He urged us.

Take your burden.

Look at it.

Don't run from it.

He asked, "How can we transform our

liabilities,

our cracks, our brokenness

into blessings?

How can we transform our liabilities,

our cracks, our brokenness into

blessings?

There's no easy answer to King's

question.

It all hurts. The pain runs deep, the

state of the world,

our own struggles.

One place to start

looking for answers to King's question

is to look to Gen Z and millennials as

guides.

Older generations, we boomers and Gen

Xers

were encouraged to hide our pain, to be

ashamed of tears, to stay resolute in

the face of despair.

Whatever it was, you just didn't talk

about it.

Many in the younger generation want no

part of that. They are all about the

cracks, sharing their tears, their

angers, their distress

more than any generation before them.

They reject stigma and embrace embrace

the need for health,

mental as well as physical.

We older generations have much to learn

about naming our brokenness.

Reach out and ask.

No matter our age,

we can acknowledge that our hearts are

supposed to crack open under the

enormity of daily grief.

We can loosen.

We can stop trying to carry our burdens

alone.

We can let oursel be nourished by song.

We can sit together in this sanctuary.

Reach out to the people who aren't here.

Let ourselves be soft,

tender.

We can remember that we are all

beautiful in our own sacred

imperfections.

If you're comfortable, I'd ask you to

take your hand and put it on your heart.

We're just going to simply a little tap

tap

just some tap on your heart.

You're okay.

You're okay. You can say that, too.

You're okay. You're talking to your

heart. You're okay.

You're okay.

Okay. Now, if you're willing,

take your piece of paper with your

crumpled, wrinkled heart

and offer your heart to someone else.

Maybe the person sitting next to you

or behind you.

someone you don't know.

Offer them your heart.

Offer them your broken hearts

and take theirs in your hands.

and know that in this community

we aspire to hold each other's hearts

gently

with care.

If you're hurting,

I hope you hear me.

We're glad you're here.

May it be so. Amen.