Becoming Unbroken

“We live in a sick society, Carl…one way or another, all of us are broken.”

In recent conversation with a clinical psychotherapist, something I said led him to make this observation about the profane patterns of psychological abuse foist upon us from a very early age.  Those of you who know me best already know that this is a subject about which I know more than I would ever wish upon another person.  While it was a rather absolute-sounding statement, I knew what he meant, and he knew how I know, as the author of “Charlie’s Ladder” – a book gaining strange momentum in the literary world.

We are broken by imperfect parents, who first inculcate us with personal and ethnic customs; with shame-based “corrections” and criticisms of behaviors, based not on our just desserts, but rather, their own fears of “how it looks to others.”  Sooner or later, values are attached to our existence on the basis of those behaviors, by fears, self-loathing, and shame…usually by parents who were, themselves, the recipients of deeply toxic branding.

Under the best of circumstances, we are blest with parents who balance these subliminal cues with words, gestures, and acts of selfless love…reinforcing our best behaviors, while subtly tempering our worst.  Under more trying circumstances, our individual life stories take a variety of dark detours…leading to suicide, prison, or becoming infamous politicians.  (Tongue in cheek, yes – but no less true.)

As young children, we are exposed to the behaviors and words of others.  We are “unfired pottery,” if you will, untested for impact with other damaged souls.  From the moment we emit our first feeble cries until our last gasps before the final heartbeat, we are fragile…“born in debt, owing the world a death,” to quote David J. Morris, from his 2016 tour de force autobiography about trauma, “The Evil Hours.”

Daunting, yes…but many of us have also developed defense mechanisms, to cope with the seemingly unending shame-based self-messaging and pain we’ve inherited.

Consequently, by the time we reach our thirties and beyond, having faced many of the challenges and disappointments of family, career, and personal relationships, we may question our goals and ourselves – our shattered dreams and aspirations – as we feel our smooth edges chip and crumble away.

If this seems grim to you, I urge you to continue reading just a little further, as I open a cultural can of worms, largely unfamiliar to our American way of thinking.

 

Kintsugi:  The Art of Scarred Perfection

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery…by mending the cracks with lacquer, mixed with gold, silver or platinum.  However, Kinsugi is more than just a repair technique.  It embodies a philosophy that embraces imperfections, seeing beauty in the brokenness.  It signifies resilience, the acceptance of flaws, and the concept that something can be made stronger and more beautiful through its imperfections.

Case in point:

     

In Japanese culture, Kintsugi teaches that breakage and repair are not to be hidden or disguised.  Rather, they are celebrated as part of the object’s unique story and journey.  The golden seams created by its repair chronicle the object’s history, making it even more valuable in a culture where such journeys have intrinsic virtues of recovery and overcoming adversity. 

As a metaphor for living this life, Kintsugi gives deeper meaning to resilience, to the idea that through enduring hardship and adversity, we are rendered stronger and more beautiful…able to embrace our own unique journeys.  Just as breaking a leg can result in the healed bone becoming stronger than had it never been broken, our emotional and psychological wounds can help us to think, act, speak, and be of service to one another in recuperative ways.  Would that it were so…

It is, sadly, a philosophy that doesn’t fit our western modes of thought and value; of buy and sell; of throw away and acquire new; of the capitalistic notion that “productivity” is an attribute to be valued in dollars, not self-growth.  This philosophy of Kintsugi may help explain why the elderly in Japan are revered, not reviled; why they occupy a prominent place at the family table, rather than a corner booth in a “Senior Living” center. 

 

The America of 2025

One recent morning, needing to refuel my car, I stopped at a local gas station and convenience store.  Upon refueling, I entered the store to get a coffee.  Paying for my purchase, I turned to leave the store…and soon found my attention captured.

There, at a table and chairs, sat a little girl, perhaps five years old.  She was playing a video game on a cell phone…sitting all alone.  Beside her was a small hash brown patty, sandwiched in a McDonald’s wrapper.  She was frail in build, and appeared concerned.  Soon, a man came, looking different from her in skin color and ethnicity.  Without even speaking to the girl, he sat down across from her.  He extracted a phone from his pocket, checked something, laid his phone on the table…and stared at the girl.

Once, the little girl glanced up at the man, and he pretended not to notice. She was dressed in matching, colorful shorts and top, wearing white sandals.  Her long, straight hair was in pigtails. The man motioned to a young female employee who approached, and the man stood, greeting the woman at a distance of twenty feet from the girl.  They spoke in hushed tones about the fact that a little girl was left all alone at a table, out in clear view of every patron, of which there were many across the racial spectrum. 

After a brief, but animated discussion about the presence of this girl at the table, the young lady returned to her job.  The man, meanwhile, returned to the table, sat down, and began typing something in his phone, occasionally glancing at the little girl.  She was now clearly concerned, and kept turning sideways to look behind her, back toward the door of the Ladies’ bathroom.

Forty-five minutes later, a young woman emerged from the Ladies’ bathroom, walking slowly toward, then past, the little girl.  She wore the attire of a sex worker:  short halter blouse with a short leather vest, revealing curvaceous flesh.  Her breasts were half-bared, drenched in flop sweat.  Her cutoff denim shorts were cut above the line of her buttocks, and she bore a landscape of tattoos on her forearms, breasts, tummy, and legs.  Long, high-healed boots propped her legs and derriere like a billboard:  her shingle was hung, and she was most definitely open for business.  Though her face and hair matched the complexion of the little girl’s, her eyes were bloodshot.  One glance at her face – a face that was, without doubt, once very beautiful – revealed all: that the little girl was hers…and mommy was strung out on street drugs.

As the woman took the little girl by the hand, speaking frantically in hushed tones – coaxing the girl to go with her – the man stood and stared at them both.  He watched as the woman pulled the girl by the arm, placing her in the back seat.  She stood beside the car, staring into her phone.  Finally, after a couple minutes, she pumped a gallon or two of fuel.  As she climbed into the car, slowly pulling away, the man picked up his phone and photographed the license plate.  Only upon turning to offer the photograph to the female employee did the man realize that he wasn’t the only one watching the spectacle unfold.  Behind him stood a handful of employees of this anonymous human waystation, their knowing stares belying a sort of familiarity…not just with this specific pair, but many others like them, passing through on their way to God knows where across the universe.

Even now, after days of ponderance, the man is haunted by the image of that little girl being forcibly removed, stuffed into a car, whisked away.  That man is…me.

 

Becoming Less Broken

What are we to do when confronted with God’s less fortunate children?  In today’s society, such a man – seen interacting with a little girl that is obviously not his own – is viewed with deep suspicion.  Yet, a little Hispanic girl can be left alone in a very public place, to be collected at the convenience of a mother who is riding a razor’s edge...and barely anyone notices.  Is this really who we’ve become?

Some say they hear God whisper.  All I can tell you is that when God whispers in my ears, His whisper is thunderous with sorrow, witnessing how His children neglect and abuse one another. 

Many years ago, an elderly man – in response to the misfortune of another – spoke these words softly under his breath, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” He had just encountered a homeless person on a street in Detroit, and handed him the only money he had in his pocket:  a $20 bill.  My father had planned to use that money to buy us  something from the concession stand at a Detroit Tigers ballgame for which I’d purchased the tickets.  He glanced at me, smiled and said, “Well…at least we have each other.”  (Now you know why I refer to my father as my greatest teacher.)  I’ve oft had occasion to remember those words, and his selfless gesture.  

On the morning of my recent encounter with that little girl, I wondered about the life of her mother…what choices, if any, she actually had.  I pondered the conundrum of circumstances leading to her being pimped out to nameless, faceless men – drugs, her only solace now to numb the pain.  What kind of scarred perfection could I possibly offer?  Where is the “Kintsugi” for such as these children of God?

Indeed, we live in a sick society…one way or another, all of us broken.  I used to think I could become unbroken by remaking myself.  Now, I know that our only hope as a society – as God’s children – lies not in repairing ourselves; our hope lies in repairing each other. 

Peace.  Shalom.

 

         

Original Sculpture, "Pleurant," used by permission:  HJ McEnroe