Kintsukuroi

If you were to ask me what my favourite passage in the Bible is, I would struggle.  Not because I don't know any to choose, but because there are so many that I find special in so many ways.  From John's Gospel, through the psalms, and into Isaiah I could name you any number of passages that speak to me.  But one of my favourites is from Paul in the letter to the Romans where he writes that 'all things work together for good for those who love God'.  I'm not only profoundly glad of that, given all the things that have got messed up in my life, but also very aware of the truth of it when I see what God has brought about through the events that have shaped me.  While I may not have seen God's working in my life at the time, when I look back I can often see his presence - if only in the fact I made it through.  And if I am changed or altered by the things that batter me around a bit, then I am no less loved by God, and of no less worth because I am a little chipped at the edges.

This poem, by David Bowles speaks of the same thing and is one of my favourites. Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of mending fine china with gold.

Kintsukuroi 

Like a hammer deliberate

Or careless, jostling child,

Life tumbles us

From safe, oblivious heights

To smash to shards

And scattering dust.

Yet, though shattered,

We may have the fortune

To feel warm, compassionate hands

Collect the fragile fragments

Of our broken selves.

With care that glitters brighter

Than even the purest gold,

They join the misshapen bits together

Leaving a webbing fretwork

Of shimmering seams

That forever remind us—

When wounds are healed by love,

The scars are beautiful.

David Bowles