Entering the Torii Gate (Partie Deu)
A Narrative by William Catling
All right, time for something new. No I do not want to be known as the “broken
plate’ guy. Repetition kills the creative spirit. Well I should say that it does not get
me excited. Once it usually enough. Really I am not interested in dragging out
the broken plate mosaics over and over as an ongoing ministry!!!
So how do I respond when I am requested to be involved in a “broken plate”
worship service at Fuller Seminary?
“Sure I would love to, when should we meet to make plans?”
Where did those words come from?
What am I doing?
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There is something going on here.
Time to pay attention.
In reflection, here are my thoughts. God is so interesting, using our essential
natures to move us forward despite our self-talk to the contrary. It is something I
have noticed over the years that often precedes important events,
breakthroughs, and connections. When these moments break through the
mundane of the endless to-do lists of life, it is best to go back to the beginning
and reexamine the process with new “eyes.” This often reveals what was unseen
previously and brings greater clarity.
When this “broken plate” idea was first presented at the coffee house it seemed
absolutely clear that it was a contemporary narrative that fits within the “parable
as teaching through metaphor” tradition. In fact the phrase dropped into my mind
in that initial conversation that “The Kingdom of God is like the sound of broken
plates.” That truth implies an ongoing reality of brokenness in the Kingdom that
rings out as if plates were breaking on a regular basis.
This began to resonate deep within me and trickle up into my consciousness as
short poetic phrases. The result is the following poetic expression that attempts
to wrap around the edges of this essential truth of the brokenness of life.
Parable of the Broken Plates
A Contemporary Narrative, by William Catling, October 2015
“The Kingdom of God is like the sound of broken plates.”
Plates break.
by accident, in anger, in moving,
while serving, when discarded, in disasters
Plates break with intention.
Plates break in surprise.
Formed of clay, glazed and fired
to become:
common earthenware or
fine bone china
Like plates-- -- -people break.
Human hearts are broken.
Agreements and vows are broken.
Relationships get broken.
Faith is broken.
Promises and hope is broken.
Bodies are broken.
Trust is broken as
Families and communities break apart.
We are broken and we suffer.
We share in Christ’s sufferings.
That we may know Him
And His sufferings
We share in the privilege of trusting
We share in the privilege of suffering
The sacrifices are a broken spirit
A broken and a contrite heart
It is wounds that knit us back together. (kintsugi)
So on a cool October evening, four-dozen leaders gathered in a wood paneled
room on the Fuller Seminary campus to worship. There was song, scripture,
readings and some silence, then as music softly filled the air, each person quietly
walked up to a table: selected a plate from a wicker basket, covered it with a
purple cloth and with anger, tears, joy, grief and sorrow dropped hammers in
ringing blows, shattering the ceramic beneath.
The fragments were then written on with words of emotion and faith and placed
in offering to the Lord. The weighty armloads of fractured platters became broken
symbols of prayers, moanings, cries, songs and shouts laid at the feet of the one
who was broken for all.
For those few minutes the room was no longer four walls with a carpeted floor
filled with uncomfortable folding chairs. It wavered, shimmered in a
transformational liminal experience of passing through the Torii Gate that leads
to a “thin space” where the spiritual and the bouncing atoms of reality blurr into
life changing possibilities.
(OK, I hear you.)