One of my other good friends pointed out, after reading last night's blog, that there's a whole Japanese art about brokenness called Kintsukuroi.
Maybe that's why my next mission is Japan. To piece together an ancient mystery that I don't even understand.
1 comment:
Love that kintsukuroi speaks to you--the art of redemption, so beautiful, the turning of what's meant or left for ill to good, to beauty. Really love your thinking on this and in the previous blog (and many before it), too, and your invitation for others to think on it as well.
What a remarkable choice to face loss with a refusal to let it define you. How astonishing when one can find the strength to see their brokenness and say I won't let it shatter me (there's a difference) but instead propel and drive me to something ... more.
I love that line in the film *The Spitfire Grill,* where young Percy asks aging Hannah, "Do you suppose if a wound is real deep, the healing of it can hurt almost as bad as what caused it?”
The unspoken answer, of course, is *yes*. For all its cost, woundedness leaves a scar and some can call it imperfect and unsightly, but, like the sea glass and river rock, for all its battering by the water, there is a gift too. Beauty so astonishing because it's the mark of survival and a benevolence in choosing to carry on as you say.
Actually, the way you say it, Luke, is really more beautiful: "Don't give up, don't give in, not today, my friend."
Kintsukuroi words, those, and not just for in the midst of losing, in the fight against cancer, but for the aftermath too, for the healing from the losses.
Grateful, Luke, when you share your heart and story and carry on with more than the rage we all feel against cancer, but with kindness and the reminder that we all possess more strength than we know.
JT
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