I have an old 1000-year-old Anasazi pot, with its surface weathered and burned. I love that old pot, broken with pieces missing, just the way it is now. I love it, simply because it is broken. I wonder. Will I still be valuable, blackened and imperfect, pieces of me lost along the way, just as I am?
Our earth is experiencing a strange, uncertain time, as we watch helplessly the ravages of Covid 19. No one knows who will be struck with it, or whether a loved one might be next. Friends admit to me they don’t feel as hopeful anymore. Their hope has slowly turned to fear, and fear to dread. For some the hope has darkened into a black acceptance that nothing will ever be right again.
I have come to understand Hope as being very similar to the art of Kintsugi. The Japanese view old or broken objects as something beautiful to display. Their cracks and missing pieces enhance their value. Using precious metal, such as liquid or powdered gold or silver mixed with lacquer, the artist carefully joins together the fragmented pieces of a broken pot, leaving random jagged patterns on the surface. Each pot is completed with painstaking love, totally different from all others.
Our personal life experiences are what make each of us unique, precious works of art. My emotional and physical wounds have changed me greatly, as I become more resilient, stronger in spirit, more forgiving of myself. It is futile for me to continue to struggle so hard to go back to the person I was before Meningitis, before I went through this long journey through life. I do know I will never go back to who I originally was. Instead, I can only rebuild myself in a new and beautiful way, looking at each wound for what it is and how I survived it.
Each wound is a precious scar, healed with tenderness, tenacity and hope.