The Spirituality of Mending

I’ve been leaning into the quiet practice of mending. As I darn a sock or stitch a patch onto worn jeans, I find myself contemplating a deeper meaning behind these ordinary acts. There’s something profoundly spiritual about taking what’s been torn or worn and giving it new life with time, care, and intention.

In many ways, mending reflects my work as a Spiritual Director—companioning others as they explore and examine the beautiful and broken places of their own souls. As I glue together broken pieces of pottery with gold or cobble together garments from scraps others might discard, I ponder how we mend what we love.

Though the word redeem has become tangled in pain for some—especially in the wake of spiritual trauma or religious abuse—it is a fitting term for the practice of mending. To redeem means to compensate for the faults or bad aspects of, or gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment. It is to restore its place in life, to honour its story, not by hiding its flaws, but by embracing them and repairing what needs mending.

Visible mending tells this story. For me, mending highlights love and goodness more than perfection ever could. Both spirituality and art are about understanding and expressing that which language often can’t. When we mend, we engage in a wordless kind of prayer—a meditation in motion.

In my experience, people desire to enter the fray of life, to be useful, to offer their gifts, skills, talents, and resources to the wider community. Yet this 'use' of a person, the entering into the arena of life - as opposed to keeping one's self safe on the sidelines, untouched - it comes with the risk of injury, internal wounds from relational interactions, risk of failure, of being misunderstood, or a host of other damage. This, in my mending contemplations, is where spiritual repair comes into play. What some may see as worthless or damaged, the Divine Knitter-of-Babes (Psalm 139: 13-16), the Comforter, Counselor, and Mender-of-Souls takes up in gentle hands.

Imagine the careful selection of just the right hue of thread, the quick pass through the lips to wet the fibers to pass through the needle, and then, what may seem like an unending process, perhaps excruciatingly slow by human understanding of time, the weaving back together of one's heart, the whole time being cradled in the attentive caress of the Presence. The God who Created you, and now re-creates, and will re-create again and again as life knocks you around in the simple honesty of wear and tear.

I appreciate how the Divine Mender doesn't discard, or reject, what is broken. Neither does God mend me in such a way so as to pretend my wound never existed. The Japanese art of kintsugi captures this beautifully.

Kintsugi, a Japanese term for 'golden joinery', also known as kintsukuroi "golden repair", is the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with a special resin, 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. Wikipedia

This philosophy resonates deeply with me. The wear on a beloved object—or a soul—is not something to be hidden but cherished. We repair not to erase the past, but to affirm the value of what has been loved and used, even wounded.

Mending, for me, is a visible form of soul care. It whispers: you are not disposable.

Mending affirms: your story, your wounds, your healing—all of it belongs!

I mend for love.

Not because I am poor or have no opportunity to replace my socks or my clothes or my pottery

(although that would be a great reason to do so).

It's not scarcity that drives my mending, but abundance.

I mend because I love my things.

I love the process of giving them attention, extending their lives, not discarding them.

I mend because I love the world, this beautiful, delicate, resilient earth that we all live on,

and I don't want garbage to cover it up or pollute it.

I mend because I love you.

I want you to know that loved things are worth mending.

I mend because I do not want to fear the risk of breakdown and loss. Mending lessens the fear of wounds and obsolescence.

Damage will occur, but mending can, too.

So, Please, *use* the things you love! The expensive mug from the potter, the garment from the designer, the woolen socks, the knit sweater, the delicate relationships, your heart that yearns to feel! Use it without fear, and with enjoyment.

Notice your dismay when it gets a snag. (That's evidence of your love)

Then take it gently into your hands and

with care-full attention,

mend it with gold, or colour!

Mending is Art.

Mending is Love.

Mending is Sacred.

- Jocelyn xo