Tag: Poetry

Kintsugi

Kintsugi

We come as broken shards
to be pieced together –
our sharp edges,
patiently softened
and held by the glowing flux
which traces what has gone before,
transforming regret into strength and beauty.

Not mending but creating anew…

[Piers Northam]

Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with seams of gold. When the brokenness is repaired, the object becomes more beautiful and unique than it was before. Instead of hiding the scars, it makes a feature of them.
The word Kintsugi means Gold (Kint) and to Mend (Sugi)

One of the leading artists promoting and teaching Kintsugi is Makoto Fijimura.
He gives his insight into the meaning of Kintsugi in a video he recorded as part of his programme known as Culture Care Creative, of which he is the founder.

In seeking to mend what is broken, this is the opposite to our prevailing disposable culture. Instead of throwing away and buying new, it is about valuing what you have.
Makoto describes the mending not as ‘fixing’ but as a redemptive journey which leads to a new creation.
He tells of the aftermath of an earthquake in Japan. Homes were destroyed but the concern of many was to mend their bowls. Bowls were all that was left the mending became a ‘safe zone’ which has the power to heal people.
In the mending you stand between repairing and creating. The imperfect becomes a symbol of the beauty of broken things.

We live with trauma, he says, and we are looking for healing in the midst of all that.Never more true than in our own times of conflict and destructive brokeness.

There is a physical process but it belies a kind of spiritual meaning.
At a popular level, the British TV Programme, Repair Shop´ in which people bring favourite broken objects which are steeped in memory, involves a kind of Kintsugi. The Team restore and renew what is presented to them because they are skilled in particular crafts. However, it is a work of love which is fed by the stories behind the damaged objects.
Old memories are reshaped and recreated into a new ones. Often we can be moved to tears, and certainly the ones seeking repairs are, because this is the real renewal.

In Kingsugi, the bowl or object seems just like a broken bowl but the cracks are filled with gold – what Makoto calls a gold river running through it.
Makoto emphasises healing and he draws from that a Gospel message.

Christ, he says, came not just to fix us but to restore us to create something new, which is more valuable than what we began with.

Redemption is re-making us in the image of Christ and the result of that is the river of Gold that reconnects us is God Himself holding us.

Kintsugi = God mends

CAEDMON, herder of cows and stirrer of souls

*Icon of Caedmon as used by Juan Alejandro Forrest de Sloper* *on his Book of Days site*

CAEDMON, herder of cows and stirrer of souls

I cannot speak, unless You loose my tongue;
I only stammer, and I speak uncertainly;
but if You touch my mouth, my Lord,
then I will sing the story of Your wonders!

(Words from the Northumbrian Community)

Today (February 11th) we remember Caedmon of Whitby.

He was encouraged in faith by St. Hilda (Hild) who,whilst she was a player on the big stage of England of its time, was also a discerner of almost unknown individuals. She was to them an encourager and one who awakened and nourished the gifts of God in others. This was especially true of Caedmon.

We owe the story to the Venerable Bede, the monk of Jarrow .

Caedmon, according to Bede, was an illiterate cowherd at Hild’s Abbey in Whitby. Beyond tending the cows he thought that he had little to offer and when those who farmed beside him would gather for an early form of Karaoke, taking turns to perform songs and poetry, Caedmon would often find an excuse to absent himself. One night, as he slipped away to be with his cows instead, he fell asleep in the cowshed. During his sleep he dreamt of a mysterious stranger who urged him to sing a song about the Creation of the world.

At first Caedmon resisted but the man in the vision persuaded him and Caedmon sang praise to God.

When he awoke he remembered his dream and told the steward. Immediately he was taken to the Abbey and Hild. She recognized that God had worked a special miracle in Caedmon. She was entranced by his singing not least because he had, hitherto, led a life in which no poetry had a part.

Hild knew that she must encourage the gift shown to him.

She called scholars and learned men to meet with him and to them he explained his dream. They then opened to him a piece of Scripture and invited him to turn it into a poem. Next morning he returned and sang a poem which captured the bible passage in verse.

Hild was thrilled and persuaded him to become a monk at the Abbey where he soon became a companion of the others. He was instructed in the bible, sacred history and tales. Like a cow chewing its cud, Caedmon ruminated and turned what he learned into beautiful music and song. The book of Genesis and the flight of God’s people from Egypt to the promised land were followed by other Old Testament tales leading to songs of Christ’s Incarnation, His Passion and Ascension.

So, Caedmon enlightened people with the Holy Word of God and enriched others not only by his compositions but also by the beauty with which he sang.

He became the first English Poet and his extraordinary story became a reminder that God often takes what seems ordinary and makes it extraordinary – or rather takes ordinary people and reveals in them (in us) extraordinary gifts. All it took was a visitation from God and a Holy woman who knew that God was up to something and encouraged the development of a vocation and of a soul who enriched the church.

Though little remains of Caedmon’s poetry, most of it being oral, we have a few lines, thanks to Bede but also he began a poetic tradition which others took on board and developed. His poetry and singing was destined to lead to the growth of a deep and lasting Anglo-Saxon / Old English poetic tradition.

Caedmon’s poem

Now we must honour the guardian of heaven
the might of the architect and his purpose,
the work of the father of glory as he, the eternal Lord,
established the beginning of wonders.
He first created for the children of men
heaven as a roof, the holy creator.
Then the guardian of mankind, the eternal Lord,
afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands of men, the Lord Almighty

*Caedmon’s memorial in Westminster Abbey*

Conversation

Held in the lamplight glow
of another’s attention
time slows…
space for a shared unfolding:
the creases, rucks and pleats
of story and experience,
passion and sorrow
carefully laid open.

In the cradle of this shared moment
we are free to wander and explore:
huddled close as we walk in step;
or running free after fresh vistas;
or simply sitting in easy company –
pondering together
and drinking in the view.

Scudding brightness pinpricks details
to be pointed at and revelled in.
Notions, like skylarks, twist and turn;
cloud-pictures drifting
and shifting,
to crystallize when they are named.

And afterwards,
the joy of sacrament:
the recognition of new knowings…
and the sense that we have been seen
and heard
and cherished –
and that together, we have grown.

Piers Northam
14 January 2022
(with thanks to Ros, Susan, Julia, Lynn and Marion)

Listen to Silence

My friend Joyce’s latest Tweet is of a Great Crested Grebe enjoying the silent stillness at Fishers Green.

The quotation she has chosen is by the Poet, Rumi – Listen to the Silence, it has much to say. As Christians enter the season of Advent once again, this is an appropriate prayer.

Jalaludin RUMI (1207-1273) was born in Balkh, Afghanistan which was then on the edge of the Persian Empire. In what sounds familar, the family was forced to flee from the invasion of the Mongol armies led by Genghis Khan. They settled in Turkey, at Konya, where Rumi lived for the rest of his life.

Here he began to write the poetry which was to influence so many, not least today. It is said that he is the most widely read poet in the English language.

God and Love are major themes in his work and combined with that is the communication we have with the Divine through Silence.
Many of his poems end with reference to silence. Coleman Banks, a scholar, poet and author of a number of works about Rumi says:
Rumi devotes a lot of attention to silence, especially at the end of poems, where he gives the words back into the silence they came from.

Rumi once wrote:

Close the door of words
that the window of your heart may open.
To see what cannot be seen
turn your eyes inward
and listen, in silence.

He maintained that Silence is the language of God. All else is poor imitation.

At the beginning of Advent we are invited to reflect and pray about the coming of God, as Rowan Williams puts it, as child, at Christmas. We do it liturgically through the Advent season by thinking in turn about the expectations of the Patriarchs, the Patriarchs, Prophets, John the Baptist and Mary but our reflections are bound up with our own expectations too. Advent is a time when we are invited to ponder God’s loving meaning for us. This is an invitation into silence. Being still so that we may know more truly and more personally who God is.

The problem is that we have to try and do this in a conflicting world which has differing values.

At the moment we are being assured by our Government and certain parts of the press, that Christmas is being saved. What I think that means is that the myth of a Christmas, driven by capitalism and the manufacture of a feel good factor, is being saved. I have considerable doubt that our Prime Minister and Government are the right people to bring any kind of salvation let alone a Christian one. (I also await the headlines that the Government is also saving Hannukah, Diwali, and Eid !)
I prefer to keep Salvation as a prerogative of God, in His Incarnate Son.

Another theme of Advent is that of Waiting. This brings excitement to the expectation. We are looking forward to celebrating the absolute joy of God’s love which pours over us in the Christ-child of Bethlehem.

And our waiting is essential for our understanding of what that means for our world, our christian communities, ourselves. It is the poet R. S. Thomas who gave us the phrase: The meaning is in the waiting.

As the story of the birth of Jesus unfolds once again, we have to wait and watch and be still in case we miss what God is trying to say to us. We have to take Rumi’s words and act on them, Listen to the Silence – it has much to say.

In our busy, madly self-absorbed world, the Holy Family slip in at the silent pinnacle of the night. The stillness contrasts so much with the clamour of all those who speak but don’t listen; of those who write without thinking; of those who hurt and anger others into a position of mistrust. Our country and society are full of empty words and ill thought out solutions which change frequently and which endanger the world’s vulnerable.
Too many words! Too little reflection!

So follow Rumi:

Close the door of words
that the window of your heart may open.
To see what cannot be seen
turn your eyes inward
and listen, in silence.

Those who listen and are still, even by snatching a few minutes, will hear the loving whisper of God. He has much love to share with us.

The Great Crested Grebe understands this. That is why she is still.

[Mr.G.]

As ever, Thank You, Joyce.

For those who would like to hear more from Rumi, try Rumi, Bridge of the Soul.’
(journeys into the music and silence of the heart poems translated by Coleman Bark with an introduction by him) published by HarperOne