Viktor Frankl, one of the great psychiatrists of the twentieth century, survived the death camps of Nazi Germany. His little book, Man’s Search for Meaning, is one of those life-changing books that everyone should read, SEVERAL TIMES

Frankl once told the story of a woman who called him in the middle of the night to calmly inform him she was about to commit suicide. Frankl kept her on the phone and talked her through her depression, giving her reason after reason to carry on living. Finally she promised she would not take her life, and she kept her word.

When they later met, Frankl asked which reason had persuaded her to live?

“None of them”, she told him.

What then influenced her to go on living, he pressed?

Her answer was simple, it was Frankl’s willingness to listen to her in the middle of the night. A world in which there was someone ready to listen to another’s pain seemed to her a world in which it was worthwhile to live.

Often, it is not the brilliant argument that makes the difference. Sometimes the small act of listening is the greatest gift we can give.

WHEN YOU HOLD SOMEONE’S SPACE; when you unconditionally accept, listen, hear, validate, affirm, you just don’t hold their space, you hold something even more sacred: THEIR SOUL.           .            .
THEY have trusted you with their whole, wounded, vulnerable Soul for the price of your offering to A LISTENING they never before had but desperately needed.        .        .

It’s not so much a question you want to have asked of you
AS ANSWERED:
Honestly:
ARE YOU BROKEN. . . ?
Shattered
Splattered
Splittered
Shredded
Shambled
Smashed
Shared
K I N T S U G I E D

Wait. . .
What is KINTSUGI ?

KINTSUGI is an ancient Japanese method of repairing broken porcelain that uses gold to fill the cracks. It kind of reminds me of the Leonard Cohen’s famous lyric, “there is a crack in everything and that is where the light comes in.”  For some reason when I pictured being cracked up inside, I tended to feel a harsh wind coming in, not the light. YOU?

This method of restoring breakage with gold is called Kintsugi (also known as Kintsukuori) and translates as “golden joinery.” I did some quick research and discovered that Kintsugi is an outgrowth of the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, which honors the beauty of imperfections.

The Kintsugi artisan uses gold or other precious metal mixed with epoxy to repair the broken piece. This method emphasizes, rather than hides, the breakage. The repaired piece is often considered even more beautiful than the original.

Kintsugi embraces the breakage as part of the object’s history, instead of something unacceptable to be hidden or thrown away. This is kind of the opposite of what we all have been taught. Haven’t we spend LIFETIMES learning that we are supposed to be perfect, and that we must hide any imperfections. This belief is imbedded in our culture: if something is broken, toss it out; if something is flawed, hide it.

Kintsugi is the perfect metaphor for how we might be able to find healing in a life that for a long time, often seems not only cracked, but broken apart—and, in a few places, shattered beyond recognition. . .

BUT WAIT. . .
IT CAN ACTUALLY NOT ONLY GET BETTER
BUT BE BETTER:
There are three types of Kintsugi repair. The first level is when all pieces are available and the cracks are filled with gold to restore the piece.

The next level is when small pieces are missing. Those areas are completely filled with gold:

Last, when large areas of the piece are missing or shattered beyond repair, the artisan will take fragments from unrelated pieces to create a patchwork design. This is the one I identify with the most:

Below  are some of my GO TO POEMS and quotes that have brought me a CALMING COMPLETEDNESS
along with an ongoing Kintsugi
that’s more a part of us
than we’ve ever been able to notice. . .

The Guest House by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

—Copyright 1997 by Coleman Barks. All rights reserved.
From The Illuminated Rumi.

Love your crooked neighbor
With all your crooked heart.
—W.H. Auden

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe me!”

Look what happens

with a love like that—

It lights the whole sky.

—Hafiz

Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

—Jane Kenyon

Quotes:

You may not find a cure, but you can still receive healing.

—Michael Lerner, Co-founder of Commonweal Cancer Help Center, Bolinas, California

It does not really matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. We are being questioned by life, hourly, daily, moment by moment. Our answer—to respond with right action and right conduct.Life ultimately means, taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems, and to fulfill the tasks which are constantly set for each individual.

—Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl taught that everything can be taken from us but one thing—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.  We cannot change these circumstances of being human, (pain, illness, loss and death)but we can change our minds and thoughts.

There is no enemy. We have stopped fighting anything and anybody.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Be kind whenever possible.
It’s always possible.
—Dalai Lama

. . .and finally my humble offering, A LEAKY VESSEL
More than nicked up
scratched
cracked
I’m a leaky vessel
often just
dripping some goodness
secreting badness
each step on my Way
for some other
Traveler of the Path
to be quenched
moistened
 along their Way
as they, too
d r i b b l e
 on. . .

Y E S
We’ve all felt like a cheap confetti
all cut up
not all together
blowing away forever in the wind
never to be
never to feel
connected
completed again
until we get
K I N T S U G I E D
A GOLDEN JOINERY AWAITS US ALL
. . .are you ready?
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
you don’t have to be. . .
it’s happening, anyway;
Why not recognize it
. . .be a part of
I T