Mending the World

by

Special to United Methodist Insight | May 13, 2025

Every hole and tear and sign of wear in a beloved piece of clothing tells a story.  As do the dings and scars and wrinkles and divots on our bodies.  They make us who we are, they recite our sagas for us without words. 

I know a lot of folks who have tattoos, and my theory is that they haven’t had enough damage done to their bodies, haven’t experienced enough wear and tear to have any visual stories to tell, so they feel compelled to tat their skin in order to tattle their tales!

In Britain during the Second World War, Coventry Cathedral, dating back to the 14th century, was blasted mostly to bits by the German Luftwaffe.  What took many decades to build, and seconds to destroy, took decades more to mend.  Just like what’s happening today – in just 100 days, whole swaths of essential government services were wiped out, and when this disastrous administration finally ends, it is going to take years to mend what’s been ripped and torn asunder.  Coventry Cathedral today is a striking modern edifice that beautifully incorporates the remains of the medieval structure.  The mending restored the cathedral to its function, while letting its long and rich story remain visible.  I pray that when our current political debacle is over, the mending process will memorialize what has happened, so that our people will remember the damage done and the price paid.

Arty, cool-looking patches on old clothing satisfy our eyes but also touch our souls, resonate with our hearts, because they are powerful metaphors for our human experience of striving and suffering and redemption and renewal.  Seeing patches on holes in the knees of Levi’s remind us of the strain and sweat we exerted while we were wearing them – gardening, building, fixing, cleaning, working.  The patches are badges of honor for our labors that resulted in the holes and tears. 

The sacred myth of the Christian gospel tells us that after Jesus resurrected, he walked and talked like he did before his crucifixion – but he wasn’t quite the same.  The wounds that killed him were still visible on his hands and feet and side, though they’d apparently mended enough that he wasn’t bleeding any more.  You could say that Jesus was tatted out!  And those tats told his tale. 

So let us wear our visible signs of wear and tear with deep respect for what we’ve been through, for all we had to deal with to get where we are today.  Those divots and dings give us character, and let us revel in it.

Of course, some of the most significant dings and divots and wears and tears are those we suffer within – ones that aren’t immediately visible.  But one way or another, these invisible marks will become visible.  And often the best patches for inner invisible tears are visible tears.  I remember plenty of times when my tears have mended my heart.  And when I’ve been a witness to the same in others. 

When we mend what has been torn, there’s usually no point in using the same kind of cloth as the item needing repair.  The idea isn’t to make it look the same as it did before it wore out.  Often that’s a hopeless enterprise.  Might as well make it obvious that you’ve mended it – but be creative about how you do it.  Japanese culture has much to teach us about artful mending.  There’s the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which a broken bowl is made whole with lacquer dusted with gold holding the pieces together, highlighting and beautifying the cracks.  A kintsugi is worth more than the bowl before it was broken! And sashiko mending is a Japanese art form, embodying the principle of wabi-sabi – perfect imperfection. 

Let us artfully, creatively mend the world of its rends and tears – not pretending we can make it like it was before.  That just makes things worse.  We’ve got people running our national government now who want to “take America back”…. But back to what?  They want to “restore” our country to their hallucinated image of its former greatness, but are wrecking it in the process.  What we need to do is to mend it and build it better than ever before, creatively employing elements both old and new.