The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World

by Sharon Brous

Erin seemed determined to leave us with an enduring message: our life’s work is to discern our core purpose, to hear the call, and then to do everything we can to live into it, for whatever time we have.

Dr. Howard Thurman said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who come alive.”

Zusya, a Hasidic rabbi living in Poland in the eighteenth century, was afraid to die. He confided to his students that he feared standing before God in judgment. His students were stunned. “But you are pious, humble, and wise,” they said. “You’ve lived a meaningful and righteous life. What do you have to worry about?” Zusya shared that he had had a vision. On the day of judgment, he was not asked, “Why weren’t you Moses, leading your people out of slavery?” or “Why weren’t you Joshua, leading your people into the Promised Land?” Instead, he was asked, “Zusya, why weren’t you Zusya?” And that, he could not answer. Becoming ourselves is a spiritual imperative of the highest order—for our own sakes and for the sake of the world. Because we are both big and small, everything and nothing. There is a note that I—and only I—and you—and only you—must sound in this sacred chorus. Each of us is only one small part of a vast and interconnected network of souls working toward the repair of our broken world.

Our life’s work is to hone the spiritual and moral clarity we need to live into our purpose, a purpose unique to each of us and to the time we live in.

Nouwen writes, “A deep understanding of our own pain makes it possible for us to convert our weakness into strength and offer our own experiences as a source of healing to those who are often lost in the darkness of their own misunderstood sufferings.”

The curiosity deficit orients us away from openhearted wonder and toward confirmation bias and affirmation of preconceived notions.