Restoration Ruminations
One of the most moving and poetic pieces of music I heard in the past year is the song, “Restore Us,” from The Soil and the Seed Project.
It’s probably the reason I decided to try and artistically fix one of my favorite decorative bowls this week instead of tossing the pieces in the trash.
In the song, there’s a reference to the Japanese art of kintsugi, the repairing of broken objects with visible mending, usually with precious metals and plaster:
“Like a vase that falls from the shelf can’t fix itself,
But the Potter collects the pieces makes something else
Mix gold in the lacquer, plaster the cracks,
and bring it on back to wholeness,
The boldness to not try to hide the flaws,
to not try to sweep away
The broken bits, mix gold in the dust,
be bold in our trust, put it all on display
Restore us, O God of hosts,
let your face shine, that we may be saved
”
So, out of curiosity and an experiment in sitting with a metaphor, I glued, plastered and attempted to use paint pens to restore the dish I knocked to the ground rushing around my kitchen (my apologies to anyone who actually does kintsugi for this faux version!)
As I worked, thoughts stirred in my mind about the nature of very real restoration in our lives that many of us are longing for in this new year. I’ll share 5 here.
1. Restoration can’t be rushed. As much as I wanted to just glue and plop the bowl back on my shelf, I desired beauty over just bandaging. In order to do that, it took time. I had to wait for the glue to dry more than once. I had to apply the plaster, let it dry, add and wipe excess metallic paint…it wasn’t something I could do in an afternoon. In our own lives, we sometimes expect God to work in our souls and lives efficiently and feel frustrated when the process includes pauses, stages and timing. If we want beauty, though, the repair isn’t instant.
2. The very fact that we long for restoration speaks to an original goodness. My desire to fix my bowl shows its beauty to begin with. The dictionary definition of “restoration” is “the action of returning something to a former owner, place, or condition.” We may lament brokenness in our own lives , our families, our communities and world, but this very lament points to God’s original and former design. In The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, Jurgen Moltmann explores how miracles are not interruptions to the natural order but instead restorations of it. He says, “Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. 'The are the only truly ‘natural’ thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized, and wounded.”
3. To be fully restored, the inside counts. At one point in the process, I was tempted to just apply the gold paint to the cracks visible on the exterior of the bowl. After all, it would be returning to the shelf over my oven where no one can really see the interior from the ground. But, I thought about how it wasn’t really finished and that in the case of something that would hold water or objects, the inside would the most vital place to return to strength. In Psalm 51, David sings to God “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom.” We can slap a history month over centuries of racial violence, set up accountability plans for sexual sins, hire new people and create new solutions for global problems but the inside counts. If we only attend to the symptoms and not the origins, motivations, and desires that cause them, we only bring about and experience part of the wholeness and wisdom God wants for us.
4. Restoration doesn’t mean that things will be the same again.
What I appreciate about kintsugi is that “as a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.” And while I appreciate not disguising brokenness, I think acknowledging history of it as well as the vulnerabilities of the repaired state are equally important.
I remember lamenting to my counselor after feeling well after a season of post-partum anxiety that I felt like it had happened to an entirely different person. I said it felt like an aberration, a fluke or a flaw. She encouraged me to see that season of suffering and integrate it into the story of my life. It wasn’t a divergence from who I was but something I lived through to find healing.
In a slightly different vein, the counselor I now see after my previous therapist retired, has been working with me on accepting the fact that I’ll never not know what it’s like to be vulnerable and to experience overwhelming emotions. The months I spent facing crippling fears and sleeplessness last year will always be a part of who I am. Yes, they have been transformed and have meaning now, but I can still experience flashbacks and avoid certain topics like medical mysteries that I’m particularly rattled by still. I am better but will never be the same.
A marriage might find incredible healing after infidelity but the recognition of the frailty of our commitments remains. A church may have new leadership but also need a time of lament over a painful past. A person might survive cancer and praise God while also not being able to walk with a close friend whose story is too similar.
I sincerely believe transformation happens in our lives when God’s Spirit is at work and the community surrounds hurting people and systems. I also think there is room for compassion and perspective, understanding we may always have a limp or scar when we begin moving again.
5. Real restoration, real artistic repair may require a professional.
Um if you couldn’t tell before this close-up, using superglue, wall-patch plaster and gold paint pens does not a kintsugi artist make. I enjoyed the process and the thoughtful time meditating on restoration, and my bowl sits up high on a shelf where no one gets too close. However, it wouldn’t hold water if it needed to do so. It isn’t as lovely as I would have hoped. There’s no real precious gold gilding the cracks. And so it goes in life. The church is an incredibly healing place at times if the community is healthy. Prayer can be comforting and create new memories where Jesus breaks into our pain. Accountability partners can walk with us through addiction and online sound bites can inspire us to think differently. AND YET, we might also need a licensed therapist. Prescription medication. Marriage experts. Trauma counselors. Historians. Conflict transformation mediators. As much as I hesitate to elevate professionals in a world that often overlooks lived wisdom and experience of those on the margin, I also have seen folks who needed professional care receive less helpful advice when faced with significant trauma. And I’ve walked with friends whom I realized might need more than just my thoughts and prayers or even, my words of encouragement. I think we would be remiss if we didn’t humbly learn our limitations and understand that faith PLUS expert help makes for even more beautiful transformation.
As the glitter of Christmastide fades and the aftermath of the holidays continues to litter our homes (literal and metaphorical), we find ourselves longing to return to what we were made to be— beloved children of a good and gracious God in a just and peaceful kingdom. We long to be restored.
May we trust in the timing of our repair, search for original shalom, heal and be healed even in the hidden parts, have compassion for realities after restoration, and know when to enlist the help of those with training and wisdom to help us.
And may you rest this week in the companionship of the One to whom the wiseman came, the One
Like a mother hen, gathering us close to the chest
Hope for the oppressed, father for the fatherless
Welcome for the foreigner, provision for the poor
And a vision for those vases broken open on the floor
-(Greg Yoder, “Restore Us” Soil and Seed Project)
