Somehow they seem to go together, to express somewhat the same sentiment . . . a snippet from a Frederick Beuchner novel and a song, Japanese Bowl, that a client sang as part of his therapy reflections last week. Each contradicts the acclaimed preferred notions of perfection, beautiful is best, unflawed, etc.
The Beuchner quote (I do not know in which of his novels this first appeared. I read it in a book of daily meditations taken from his works.): When the character Gildas struggled to stand up, he lost his balance because one leg had been amputated at the knee. When Brendan caught him, Gildas lamented, "I'm as crippled as the dark world." To which Brendan answered, "If it comes to that, which one of us isn't, my dear ?" The narrator continued, "The truth of what Brendan said stopped all our mouths. We was cripples all of us. . . . 'To lend each other a hand when we're falling,' Brendan said. 'Perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end.'" [In Beuchner, Listening to Your Life, meditation for March 24]
I had not heard Peter Mayer's song before my client sang it in his last session as he reflected on difficult places he has travelled. The bowl pictured above is an example of kintsugi, an ancient method of repairing broken pottery. (If interested in how the process is achieved, put your search engine on the word.) (The song can be found on YouTube.)
"I'm like one of those Japanese bowls
That were made long ago
I have some cracks in me
That have been filled with gold
That's what they used back then
When they had a bowl to mend
It did not hide the cracks
It made them shine instead
So now every old scar shows
from every time I broke
And anyone's eyes can see
I'm not what I used to be
But in a collector's mind
All of these jagged lines
Make me more beautiful
And worth a higher price
I'm like one of those Japanese bowls
I was made long ago
I have some cracks you can see
See how they shine of gold.
The therapist, Mary Piper, wrote that "almost everyone I know has a much harder and more complicated life than others realize." And, I can not locate the origin of this reminder: "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle." Or, as I heard old-timers say in my youth, "everybody's totin' a load." And the stressors of those loads often press to the breaking point. It is at those places and times that rather than consigning the broken ones to irrelevance, adopting the art of kintsugi and the understanding that the person is more beautiful without hiding the wounds, "perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end".
In a world where "we be cripples, all of us", kintsugi can speak a word of HOPE.
Satchel
