In the place where they were told, "You are nobody," this will be the very place where they will be renamed "Children of the living God."~Romans 9:26 (The Passion Translation)

A letter waited for me in the post office box yesterday. A high school friend wrote that she'd found an old photo of me and my mother she'd snapped when I was eighteen. The photo in the envelope showed me with long hair wearing a pair of maroon bellbottoms, platform shoes peeking from under the flared hems. My mother, younger than I am now, smiled widely, her hair a brown bouffant helmet styled to last for a week--her arm around my slender waist. As I looked at the faded photo I wondered, "What if I'd believed I was not a 'nobody' then?" "What if I'd believed even though I was invisible to the 'popular crowd,' I was not insignificant?" 

I think about those questions now. I wonder where that location was where I was renamed. I believe that locale was my mind. My belief system. As I gazed at that little square of memory, I realized that at eighteen, I believed I was "nobody." I didn't see myself accurately. Plenty of others did. My high school friend often said, "You are so pretty, Prissy." My mother did. Father too. My parents often said they were proud of me. An English teacher pulled me aside one day before high school graduation and said, "You have a real talent for writing. I hope you'll keep at it." I didn't believe any of them.

"Artist Makoto Fujimura is a student of kintsugi--'golden repair'--the Japenese art of mending broken ceramics with laquer mixed with precious metals, restoring a bowl or cup to wholeness and function while highlighting, rather than masking, the fractures. Objects repaired by kintsugi masters are often stunningly beautiful, veined with gold, silver, or platinum that trace a history of traumatic destruction and sublime redemption."~Julie Polter (From the article God Is In The Making, Sojourners, February, 2021)

I found my way back to the page earlier than anticipated. Perhaps because my sabbatical from writing each week became more than I could bear. I ran back to the page almost like I would run toward the daylight. Writing is warmth for me, a constant and loyal companion. 

When I read of Makoto Fujimura's art of "golden repair," I matched the concept with my own experience with the art of writing. When I've encountered life-fracturing events, writing has acted like the laquer mixed with gold, silver or platinum to mend the broken places. The crack has not been cosmetically removed, but rather curated into something beautiful. Something better. In a society where we often discard cracked things or attempt to cover up the fractured place, this type of restoration might even be considered too good to be true, likened to the grace of God.