At the start of a new year we have often set ourselves challenges. We’ve decided that there are things we can do better, changes to be made and new things to achieve. We are full of good intentions.
About now we may be telling ourselves what a failure we are, because we have already failed to meet the challenge. We may not even have started. I read somewhere that some 80% of those who sign up to a gym in January haven’t got there by February!
We could review, amend our goals and start again. We could even decide that it wasn’t a realistic idea in the first place. However, in our disappointment we often translate this “failure” into, “I am a failure”. Repeated often enough this affirmation can come to be how we see ourselves and the basis on which we act and relate to others.
The Japanese art of Kintsugi is the art of taking the pieces of a broken pot and carefully putting them back together again. To do so the artist uses a mixture of resin and powdered gold. The restored pot is deemed to be worth more than the original unbroken pot.
In Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus heals a paralysed man, he says to him, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” To a woman who has been suffering from a haemorrhage for twelve years he says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” “Take heart “ could be good words to start our own positive affirmation.
Chris Dawson