Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?
Matthew 7, Verse 3
It’s so very easy to see fault in others, isn’t it? Seeing what others are doing wrong, or judging their choice by how we feel about a particular subject is part-and-parcel of being human. When we point out something wrong with another, how does it make us feel? At times, a bit superior, and at other times, like the grim reaper, when we see the look in their eyes. If they are complicit in choosing to do something hurtful or destructive, they may be defensive about their actions or words, and that is usually obvious in their response. If they are unaware, however, they may feel confused, embarrassed, or ashamed that their actions are wrong, incorrect, or perhaps hurtful to another. There is an old saying that when you point at someone else, three fingers point back at you, which is such a fantastic reminder that no one is perfect, we all make mistakes, and making mistakes is the way we learn.
There exists, though, the extremes of ‘tearing down,’ as opposed to ‘building up’ or ‘hurting,’ vs ‘healing’ and so forth. Remembering that we now have three of our own fingers pointing back at us, and to our own faults, what difference would it make in the way we think if we ‘pointed out’ good, praiseworthy things? ‘Building up’ instead of ‘tearing down?’ Emphasizing the potential good instead of the disastrous outcome of a difficult situation? Of simply looking, first, for the good in people and things? How would we feel? How would that work, even? Even the best people we know are prone to see the faults in a situation because someone will need to deal with correcting someone or something in order to make the situation ‘right.’ But, it begs the question of what is ‘right’ and who gets to make that judgement. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the piece with lacquer mixed with powdered gold and making the piece whole and usable again. The gold can clearly be seen along the crack-lines, so it is not as if the piece was repaired and now looks exactly how it did before it was broken. It has been transformed and is now something entirely new. Certainly, a Kintsugi-repaired bowl is still a bowl, but it is now unique in all the world, with a spectacular display of how it was ‘healed.’ If this can be done to a simple bowl, how can we take this same idea into how we judge others?
‘Right’ is usually the provenance of the ‘winner’ when it applies to any type of combat, from the battlefield to the soccer field. While war and sport do, indeed, draw definitive lines about many things, our lives on this planet need not do so as well. Good things can come from bad, and lives and situations can change their course with thoughtful words and ideas. It is up to us, though, to navigate those changes in how we move through life, offering hope and love, rather than despair and fear. If we can all begin simply, little by little, becoming used to healing rather than destroying, what will be capable of doing? And what kind of world will we create?