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Kintsukuroi Christmas

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Have you ever opened a Christmas present to find it wasn’t quite what you expected?

I confess, I hate Secret Santa. I’ve been scarred more than once. One time a group of my friends decided it would be good to do a Secret Santa. I spend an hour or two making sure that I found a present for my secret santa that was good quality, something small but meaningful. After all, no one wants to get some dud present. In the end I bought this person a small sampler of some good quality chocolates – something discreet, tasteful and universally enjoyed.

In return, I got a tin of cat food … and not even good quality cat food, but the cheapest generic cat food from the worst supermarket chain.

Stunned, I remember stammering, “But … I don’t have a cat …” (For the record, my friends were very unsympathetic and thought it was extremely hilarious).

Another time for a workplace Secret Santa, I had to buy for one of my receptionists. Again, I thought about something that would be discreet, tasteful and universally enjoyed, and I tracked down a small gift box from the Body Shop.

In return, I got batteries, and again, not good batteries, but the cheap variety that have lost half their charge before you even take them from the packet. To rub salt into that particular wound, my secret santa revealed himself as one of the other doctors in the practice, who proudly said, “You’ve got kids, so I thought batteries would be a great present for all of the toys they’re going to get.”

Dude, I’ve got Asperger’s, and even I know that was a sucky present! So, uh, thanks?

Ever since the first Christmas more than two thousand years ago, Christmas is a time of giving gifts. In the description of the first Christmas in the Bible, the three magi (or wise men) brought the baby Jesus three gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh. Interestingly, history suggests that these gifts were extraordinarily precious which in ancient times made them standard gifts to honour a king or deity. Gold as we know is a precious metal. Frankincense was used as perfume or incense and myrrh was used as an anointing oil. These same three items were apparently among the gifts, recorded in ancient inscriptions, that King Seleucus II Callinicus offered to the god Apollo at the temple in Miletus in 243 B.C.E.

Christmas presents have come a long way since then, and even more so in the last century. My father was born in a poor part of northern England at the end of the great depression, the youngest child of a family of ten children. He would tell me of his Christmases growing up and how his brothers and sisters looked forward to getting an apple, an orange and some nuts in their Christmas stockings. When I was a pre-teen in the 80’s, I got books and clothes, cricket gear and matchbox cars (hey, they were cool back in the day). This Christmas, all my tween and teen children want is electronic consoles (my son has his heart set on a Wii Switch). I don’t dare think what my grandchildren will be asking for at Christmas time in twenty or thirty years’ time.

Whether you get presents fit for a king or you end up with the booby prize of generic cat food, we at least expect our presents to work. No one wants a broken present after all. So imagine if when you opened your Christmas present, it was cracked, or chipped, or broken. What would you do? Would you keep it, or hope that the person who gave it to you kept the receipt?

There’s an ancient Japanese tradition that would not only keep things which were broken, in repairing them, would make them even more precious. For more than 400 years, the Japanese people have practiced kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi (pronounced ‘kint soo koo ree’) is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer, and the deep understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

The edges of the broken fragments are coated with a glue made from Japanese lacquer resin and are bonded back into place. The joints are rubbed with an adhesive until the surface is perfectly smooth again. After drying, more lacquer is applied. This process is repeated many times, and gold dust is also applied.

In kintsukuroi, the gold lacquer accentuates the fracture lines, and the breakage is honoured as part of that piece’s history.

In the practice of kintsukuroi, we see the principle that whilst all things have the capacity to be broken, they also have the capacity for redemption.

Sometimes I feel very, very broken … hopeless, useless, like I’m just a broken present. Sometimes I wish I could be returned, but I didn’t come with a receipt and sometimes I feel like no one would want me back anyway. Sometimes I feel like I’m good for nothing but the scrapheap.

Whether it’s mental illness, family stress, financial hardship or just the daily grind wearing us down, we can all find ourselves feeling a bit broken at times.

Christmas reminds us of the gift of redemption. Jesus’ life was one of fixing that which was broken, of giving people a second chance. The gospels tell story after story of how Jesus helped people back on to their feet; forgiving, healing and restoring hope. Even his life before his ministry was that of a carpenter, creating new things and fixing that which was broken.

It’s easy to feel broken in this broken world, but remember, whilst all things have the capacity to be broken, they also have the capacity for redemption. No one is beyond repair. Like objects fixed with kintsukuroi, being broken isn’t the end, but we can become even better – more beautiful and more honoured for having been broken.

I hope that this Christmas, you can find hope and redemption, and that you get some good gifts worthy of a king, not worthy of a cat.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. See you in 2019.

Kintsukuroi Christians

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When I was a kid growing up, there wasn’t much that my father couldn’t repair.

Dad was extremely gifted with his hands, a talent that I certainly didn’t inherit. He was able to take a problem, come up with a practical solution in his mind’s eye, then build it out of whatever scraps of wood, metal or plastic he could lay his hands on. It was the ultimate expression of frugality and recycling that comes from a limited income and four growing children.

Dad was also able to resurrect nearly everything that broke in our house. Plates, cups, teapots, toys, tools … it seemed there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed by the careful application of Araldite.

Araldite, for those unfamiliar with it, is some sort of epoxy resin that, in the right hands, possesses mystical properties of adhesion. It would stick anything to anything.

Dad’s gift for repairing things with Araldite meant that a lot of our things were patched up. Some of our most loved possessions were the most cracked. Despite being glued together several times, each item was still functional. Maybe not as pretty as it may have once been, but still useful, and more importantly, still treasured. Each time the Araldite came out, it taught me that whilst all things have the capacity to be broken, they also have the capacity for redemption.

There’s an ancient Japanese tradition that shares the same principles. For more than 400 years, the Japanese people have practiced kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi (pronounced ‘kint soo koo ree’) is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer, and the deep understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.

The edges of the broken fragments are coated with the glue made from Japanese lacquer resin and are bonded back into place. The joints are rubbed with an adhesive until the surface is perfectly smooth again. After drying, more lacquer is applied. This process is repeated many times, and gold dust is also applied. In kintsukuroi, the gold lacquer accentuates the fracture lines, and the breakage is honoured as part of that piece’s history.
Mental illness is a mystery to most people, shrouded by mythology, stigma, gossip or Hollywood hype. It’s all around us, affecting a quarter of the population every year, but so often those with mental illness hide in plain sight. Mental illness doesn’t give you a limp, a lump, or a lag. It affects feelings and thoughts, our most latent personal inner world, the iceberg underneath the waters.

On the front line of medicine, I see people with mental health problems every day, but mental health problems don’t limit themselves to the doctor’s office. They’re spread throughout our everyday lives. If one in four people have a mental health problem of one form or another, then one in four Christians have a mental health problem of one form or another. If your church experience is anything like mine, you would shake hands with at least ten people from the front door to your seat. Statistically speaking, two or three of them will have a mental illness. Could you tell?

It’s a fair bet that most people wouldn’t know if someone in their church had a mental illness. Christians battling with mental illness learn to present a happy façade, or face the judgment if they don’t), so they either hide their inner pain, or just avoid church altogether.
Experiencing a mental illness also makes people feel permanently broken. They feel like they’re never going to be whole again, or good enough, or useful, or loved. They’re often treated that way by well-meaning but ill-informed church members whose idea’s and opinions on mental illness is out-of-date.

The truth is that Christians who have experienced mental ill-health are like a kintsukuroi pot.

Mental illness may break them, sure. But they don’t stay broken. The dark and difficult times, and their recovery from their illness is simply God putting lacquer on their broken pieces, putting them back together, and rubbing gold dust into their cracks.
We are all kintsukuroi Christians – we’re more beautiful and more honoured than we were before, because of our brokenness, and our recovery.

I’m pleased to announce that my book, Kintsukuroi Christians, is now available. I’ve written this book to try and bring together the best of the medical and spiritual.
Unfortunately, good scientific information often bypasses the church. The church is typically misled by Christian ‘experts’ that preach a view of mental health based on a skewed or outdated understanding of mental illness and cognitive neuroscience. I want to present a guide to mental illness and recovery that’s easy for Christians to digest, adopting the best spiritual AND scientific perspective.

In the book, I look at some scientific basics. Our mental world is based on the physical world. Our mind is a function of the brain, just like breathing is a function of our lungs. Just as we can’t properly understand our breathing without understanding our lungs, so it is that if we’re going to understand our thinking and our minds, we are going to have to understand the way our brain works. So the first part of this book will be an unpacking of the neurobiology of thought.

We’ll also look at what promotes good mental health. Then we’ll look at what causes mental illness, specifically looking at the most common mental health disorders. I will only look at some of the most common disorders to demonstrate some general principles of psychiatric illnesses and treatments. This book won’t be an encyclopaedia, and it doesn’t need to be. I hope to provide a framework so that common and uncommon mental health disorders can be better understood. I also discuss suicide, which is sadly more common than most people realise, and is rarely discussed.

I know mental illness is difficult, and we often look at ourselves or others as though the brokenness is abhorrent, ugly and deforming.
My hope is that through Kintsukuroi Christians, you’ll see the broken pieces are mended with gold, and realise that having or recovering from a mental illness doesn’t render someone useless or broken, but that God turns our mental brokenness into beauty.

Kintsukuroi Christians is available to purchase from good Christian bookstores around the world including:

Kooyong = https://www.koorong.com/search/product/kintsukuroi-christians-christopher-pitt/9780994596895.jhtml

Amazon US = https://www.amazon.com/Kintsukuroi-Christians-TURNING-MENTAL-BROKENNESS/dp/0994596898/

Amazon UK = https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kintsukuroi-Christians-TURNING-MENTAL-BROKENNESS/dp/0994596898/

Smashwords = https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/720425

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Mental illness can be challenging. Sometimes learning about mental illness can bring up difficult feelings or emotions, either things that you’ve been through yourself, or because you develop a better understanding of what a loved one is going through or has been through. Sometimes old issues that have been suppressed or not properly dealt with can bubble up to the surface. If at any point you feel distressed, I strongly encourage you to talk to your local doctor, psychologist, or pastor. If the feelings are so overwhelming that you need to talk to someone quickly, then please don’t delay, but reach out to a crisis service in your country

In Australia
Lifeline 13 11 14, or
BeyondBlue
Call 1300 22 4636
Daily web chat (between 3pm–12am) and email (with a response provided within 24 hours)  https://www.beyondblue.org.au/about-us/contact-us.

USA = National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

New Zealand = Lifeline Aotearoa 24/7 Helpline 0800 543 354

UK = Samaritans (24 hour help line) 116 123

For other countries, Your Life Counts maintains a list of crisis services across a number of countries: http://www.yourlifecounts.org/need-help/crisis-lines.