Beauty in Brokenness

I read a book recently that talks about the Japanese art of kintsugi.  Kintsugi is the process of repairing broken pottery with a lacquer filled with gold dust and other precious metals.   The kintsugi process has such a lovely result, that people have been accused of purposely breaking their ceramics so that these items can be repaired with the tell-tale look of the gold lines running through them, like a golden web or a yellow brick road on a map.  The Japanese often consider the repaired ceramic pieces to be even more beautiful and valuable than before, because their kintsugi shows that the pieces have a history and are worthy of being fixed.

Many people consider kintsugi to be part of the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi which means embracing the imperfect and flawed.  This passage is from The Book of Life website:

“In an age that worships youth, perfection and the new, the art of kintsugi retains a particular wisdom – as applicable to our own lives as it is to a broken tea cup. The care and love expended on the shattered pots should lend us the confidence to respect what is damaged and scarred, vulnerable and imperfect – starting with ourselves and those around us.”

Kintsugi is an excellent reminder that our scars and our hurts and our pains have lead us to a beautiful wisdom and a resilient strength.  When we reach middle age, it is nearly impossible to have not gone through some trials, many that may have brought us to our knees.  But we are still standing, and what we have gained in the process of making it through our struggles is actually a beautiful and a shining example to others on life’s journey, that it is possible to make it through the hard times and to be even more magnificent for it.  We should wear our battle scars with pride.  We should envision them as golden veins of hope and endurance.  We should embrace what is less than perfect in ourselves, and in doing so, allowing others to do the same for themselves.  Perhaps kintsugi is like a golden maze of veins in a heart, making it easy for love to flow through, even the most broken of anything.