It’s hard to be real, isn’t it, without also being vulnerable? Two people said I was ‘authentic’ this week, which was nice to hear, but also strange - like being a jug examined at the Antiques Roadshow. Yep, definitely a jug. There’s the maker’s mark, there’s the thing you always see with the real thing that’s so hard to copy. Now what’s it worth?
Being real means being examined, having yourself available for inspection by anyone, and that has every chance of pain and hurt and disappointment. What I’m saying is that it’s costly to be real. And being false is cheap.
But when people call out words like ‘authenticity’ and ‘integrity’ I just panic. Didn’t they see that time I greedily snatched the last roast potatoes from the Sunday dinner table? Or what about when I described someone with a word I’d never have used to their face? I could go on. The flashes of anger, the sarcasm I aim at my wife sometimes, or the theft of time from my work who don’t know that I had a two hour lunch break? I panic because if they find out that the jug has a crack in it, they might (gulp) value it less, or (oh dear) sigh with crashing disappointment, or worse, just chuck the whole thing away.
The only truth that matters (and I’m so sorry if this is not your cup of tea, or you just don’t want to hear it) is that for some reason, God loves a broken jug. Nope, I don’t fully understand it either, but it’s just true - he loves us enough to put us back together, to fix the cracks and glue on the handles. He polishes us and cleans up the gunk, and then restamps us with the maker’s mark. And he loves the realness of the process, just as he loves the pottery he made in the first place.
It’s hard to be real. But if there’s one place I want to try it, if there’s one place to be so very vulnerable to opinion and hope and repair - it’s the maker’s workshop.
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