Tag: imperfection

Mending brokenness with gold

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

A few days ago, I heard again a story I have heard before about a Japanese method of repairing a broken object, like a teacup or a vase, with gold, and of the philosophy that goes with that process. The belief is that the visible brokenness and mendedness makes the repaired object even more beautiful than it was when it was an unbroken whole … more beautiful AND more beloved.

So, my curiosity helped me discover that this repair process is called ‘kintsugi,’ which as I understand means literally ‘gold joinery,’ or ‘to join with gold.’ And that this joining with gold process and philosophy is also a part of the Zen ideals of ‘wabi sabi,’ which teaches about seeing the beauty of aged, weathered, or worn things.

About cherishing the beauty of unpretentious imperfection, honoring the beauty of simplicity, of authenticity, of vulnerability. About respecting the deep, rich beauty of things that have been broken and mended.

But also about respecting and honoring the rich beauty of people who have been wounded and aren’t afraid to let their scars, their brokenness and their mendedness, to be visible …

Of people who understood that their brokenness was worth being mended with gold, that they were worth being mended and made a new whole …

What beautiful philosophies! Or maybe I should say ‘practices’ … because these words and ideals aren’t meant to be elegant objects to set on the shelf of your mind or heart, to look at and admire. They’re meant to be a way of living more richly and soulfully … seeing beauty and light in the ordinary, the cracked and broken, the imperfection, and seeing them all with belovedness.

Teaching that broken things can be mended and still have purpose, usefulness, beauty, a beauty that maybe new things don’t and can’t yet possess … In this way, also teaching the hope of restoration and reconciliation.

I realized that this method of kintsugi, this way of repairing and joining with gold, doesn’t just apply to broken objects … but to our own broken hearts. And what about to broken or cracked relationships, friendships? Can those cracks or breaks be filled, joined with the gold of forgiveness, of reconciliation, whatever reconciliation may mean in that circumstance?

Cracks happen, relational fractures happen, relational rifts arise. Words cause wounds, trust cracks, a sense of spiritual or emotional distance opens up, disconnect, misunderstandings, miscommunication, unequal feelings. Conflicts and crises might shake a relationship … maybe sometimes shatter it, or cause the individuals in it to feel a shattering. Or perhaps just a subtle but profound shifting of the relational foundation …

And so what felt like a strong, deep-rooted relationship or friendship seems to become like a beautiful vase that fell and shattered … what do you do with the broken pieces of the vase? Do you sweep the pieces into the trash, and consider the worth of the vase irretrievably ruined? The question is, how precious was the vase … precious enough to gather up the pieces and fit them back together, even if they will not be in the same flawless form? Precious enough to find the most beautiful way to fit them back together, even if it is a painstaking – or painful – process?

Can a cracked, wounded, broken relationship or friendship be made whole, restored or repaired as if the cracked, breached, or broken places had never been? Maybe, maybe not … but whether it can or not, the effort of reconciliation, the desire of restoration or repair, is precious beyond price!

And so, the deeper question that came to me is: What if we sought to repair and restore our relationships, our friendships, in the kintsugi way? To mend, to join with gold, the broken places, the broken trust, the broken communication, the broken connections. To mend brokenness with belovedness.

How is that done … with mindful listening and open-hearted conversation. With open-souled vulnerability and deep humility. Sometimes, with tears, with repentance, with apologies … and sometimes, with stillness, silence, space.

Maybe it seems counterintuitive, that giving space would be the thing that healed brokenness or disconnect, but sometimes, it’s the loving act of giving space, letting go, that becomes the gold that joins relationships together again. It’s what my soul believes, anyway!

I think that perhaps a truly sacred relationship or friendship is one that has seen and been weathered by storms, one that has endured brokenness but has been mended with gold. Because it was precious enough to be mended and mended with the best …

And it is more beautiful, more cherished, more honored because it has been broken and because of all the gold with which it is mended and joined together …

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Questions to consider: politically, socially, globally, what if we sought to repair broken relationships in a kintsugi way, a way of belovedness? And – what if we sought to repair and restore our broken relationship with the earth, with nature, in a kintsugi way? What might that look like?

The gift of imperfection: an authentic offering

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.

These lines are from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem”, and when I came across them recently, they felt like a gift to me. A gift that I’ve been working on unwrapping and opening … and want to share with you, just as it is, unpolished, straight from my heart to you!

I have heard the last line quoted often before – There’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in – without ever hearing the whole song. But when I was listening to it, it was these words Forget your perfect offering that resonated most deeply with me.

What is it saying? It may say something different to each one of us, something different to you than to me, but what it said to me was, Be authentic, be your imperfectly real self. Not who you think you’re supposed to be, but who you are. Who you are right now, including what you believe to be your brokenness, what is your brokenness. What you think, or know, are the cracks in you.

It’s saying, Forget striving for your perfect offering and remember your imperfect offering. Remember that your imperfect offering is beautiful, it is enough; it is enough because it is what you have right now, here and now, in this moment. See where the light gets in your offering and makes it beautiful, perfectly, beautifully authentic. Imperfectly perfect, perfectly imperfect.

It’s saying … forget perfection. Forget striving for it. Yes, give of the best that you have, the best that you are … but don’t then judge it as ‘less than,’ ‘not good enough,’ or ‘flawed’. As if ‘flawed’ is an ugly, irredeemable, unholy thing. Except that it isn’t … oh, it isn’t. Not in the light of belovedness, it isn’t!

And like a popular Christian song goes ‘Beautiful, the mess we are/The honest cries of breaking hearts, are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.’ It’s the honesty and the authenticity that’s so beautiful, the real rawness, the raw realness. No pretending. No pretending that there isn’t brokenness, breaking places in our hearts and lives. But acknowledging them, offering them up in vulnerable, beautiful openness. Then, oh, the grace that bountifully blesses such an offering … and what remains imperfect about it, then?

Authenticity and honesty make the imperfection into something perfect …. the imperfect offering becomes a whole offering, even a holy offering.

Our brokenness, our imperfections can be things of holiness, places where the light gets into us … places where the light flows out of us and shines all the more perfectly!

The gift of our imperfections is that they can be a gift to others; a gift of light and grace. They can be the places where we have the most to offer, the most light to give. The places wherein we seem the most beautiful to others, where we are the most beautiful to others!

Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.

Ring that bell! The cracked bell that can still ring, and ring resoundingly!

Ring that bell! The cracked bell that can still ring … ring resoundingly with belovedness. A cracked bell can still echo belovedness, and perhaps all the more richly and perfectly because of its imperfection.

Ring that cracked bell … embrace your imperfections. Know the gift of them, share the gift in them. It’s where your life echoes with belovedness; it’s where the light gets in and where it is most luminous.

Your authentic offering is truly your ‘perfect’ offering! It is where you are most you, where you are most beautiful, where you are enough.