Purple, Gold, and Glue

In my first official post as a blogger, let’s talk about glue, ancient oils, and Christmas.

See the purple and gold on my Christmas tree? They have very special meaning. It makes sense to me that as I begin the share my journey from Shattered to Shalom and All the Curious Moments In Between that I include the meaning of purple, gold, and glue.

In the summer of 2021 my heart was shattered by betrayal and abandonment. A million pieces. There was no sweeping it up or putting it back together. The task was too much to undertake. Even in that knowledge, I wanted to survive. Live.

My therapist is big in art and imagery. Dotti pushed me and made me create when I only wanted to cry. I searched the internet for a simple drawing of a heart. Printed it. I needed to draw on, fill, and color it. I colored it a blue-ish red to signify the blood that keeps us all alive. Then I filled it with the jagged lines of shattering. It was hard to see what the heart had originally been…there was so much brokenness.

As I began to heal, the ancient oil of frankincense and heady scent of lavendar seeped into the cracks. It was hard to allow this healing because it was too slow. I know my readers don’t all share my faith. That’s ok. I’ll tell my story anyway. I know that it was God–in his perfect way of (what feels very slow) timing–drizzling these healing oils to slowly and steadily get me back on my feet. My heart isn’t just blue-ish red anymore. It’s red and purple and gold. It’s held together by the glue of frankincense (gold) and lavendar (purple). They are the glue that put me back together. One shard at a time. Even now, more than three years later, the purple and gold spread. They are strong. Sure. Kind of like the art of kintsugi. (Also learned from my therapist, Dotti.)

According to Wikipedia, Kintsugi is also known as kintsukuroi, it is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. 

My breakage and my repair are something I cannot disguise but are, instead, the history of Susie.

When I was choosing baubles for a new Christmas tree, I chose purple, gold and some red. It’s meant to remind me that a baby was born on Christmas to give his life as a man. Jesus knew betrayal and abandonment but still lived a life of kindness and integrity. It’s meant to remind me in these limnal days between Christmas and a New Year that I’ve healed in more ways than I can only try to write. And there have been oh so many curious moments in between.

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