Summer of Prayer IV

O Compassionate Companion
I find, in the end, that I am but a
cracked and empty vessel,
and yet even there I encounter your love.

Use me, I pray, in your service
and, if it is your will,
smash me and set me free
among the shattered pieces that
I thought so precious
that I may find my entire life in you. Amen.

(UTO Book of Prayers – Rev. Shannon Leach of Nevada)
Kintsugi: the art of precious scars
The Japanese call it the art of kintsugi or kintsukuroi. It’s more than an art but a parable of healing and reconciliation. The word kintsugi is made up of two Japanese words: “golden” and “repair.” It’s the technique of repairing broken ceramics or pottery by joining the fragments together with liquid gold, liquid silver or lacquer dusted with powdered gold. Every repaired piece becomes a unique and different work because of the randomness with which ceramics shatter and the irregular patterns formed that are enhanced with the use of precious metals.

According to legend, the kintsugi technique was invented around the fifteenth century, when a shogun shattered his favorite teacup. The shogun sent the pieces to China to be repaired, but the cup was returned with ugly and impractical metal ligatures. The shogun was resigned to the loss of his cup, until some Japanese craftsmen took the cup and transformed it into a jewel by filling its cracks with lacquered resin and powdered gold. The shogun was delighted with his “new,” re-created cup. Through the art of kintsugi, what was once broken becomes whole again in a new — and stronger — way; what might be dismissed as ugly “scars” now radiates in the light of someone’s meticulous work to make the piece whole again.

In Luke 8, Jesus casts out the demons from the possessed man Legion and transforms the possessed man’s “scars” into revelations of God’s mercy. Jesus calls us to be practitioners of the art of spiritual kintsugi: to mend the broken with the gold of compassion, to repair the fragmented with the silver of humble selflessness, to restore what is to be thrown away with the lacquer of respect and honor as “pieces” of God.

Resources: UTO Book of Prayers, Disciples Prayer Book, Forward Day by Day, Forward Movement Prayers (Morning), Prayers for Sleepless Nights and more can be found in the Narthex.