Oh the Humanity!
Kintsugi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBUTQkaSSTY
Recommection: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/nhe-131036/
Above are two things I would like for you to look at in your leisure. One concerns the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi and the other a reconnection ritual that may, or may not be practiced in a part of Africa.
I was inspired to write this sermon by a moment of vulnerability I was recently witness to. I cannot count how many times I have been in the same situation. Seen myself commit an error and immediately begin to punish myself or look down on myself or expect something better of myself.
In my thirty one years of living, I have never noticed growth when I belittled and berated myself into behaving better. In fact, I think I only made small wounds much bigger, small situations seem larger than life. It had the opposite effect.
What I really want to get at is that we need to remember our Humanity.n Kintsugi is about repairing, recovering, reconnecting a broken vessel and allowing it to be of use again. Perhaps sometimes when we make an error we feel worthless, useless, but the Force would have us know that we are not useless, that we are not worthless but that we are beautiful because of our Humanity, Our Frailty. Our capacity to break and make mistakes does not make us weak, or inadequate for the task of being alive. I have learned much more from my mistakes that I have ever from my successes. As we learn so we grow.
In the African re-connection ritual we discovered that we don't lose any part of ourselves when we make mistakes. I don't stop being a Jedi because I made an error in judgment. I may lose friends or family depending on the severity of my mistake but I don't lose the capacity to make friends or to reconcile relationships. I don't suddenly become unlovable. I am not my worst mistake, I am all that others remember about me both good and bad.
When I remember that I am useful, that I am beautiful despite my flaws, despite my damages; when I remember that I am not my worst mistake that, I am all the things that others remember about me including the good, then I reset myself and get back on the road that is the hero's journey remembering that I'm worthy of it.
May the Force be with you all
Ros
