Sometimes I confuse “changing” myself with “fixing” myself.
Maybe I even confuse “changing” the world with “fixing” the world.
Not sure when my brain made these synonymous.
Oddly enough when I first read this quote by Rumi and scrolled over several screens to start writing about it, I inserted the word “fixing” where Rumi had clearly written “changing” instead.
So what’s the difference?
If I am “fixing” myself, that implies I am broken… doesn’t it?
And am I… broken?
Are you?
When I hear the word “fix”, an image of myself as a coffee cup made out of fired clay comes to mind. Me, the cup, lays shattered on the ground as super glue and careful hands try and fix me. No matter how hard the hands work, the pieces just won’t come back together in a way that implies I am “fixed.”
When I hear the word “change”, however, an image of myself as the clay before it is fired comes to mind. In this image, I am not in hard, unyielding shattered pieces on the ground but I am on the pottery wheel.
Instead of broken, I am malleable.
Instead of stiff and unyielding, I am open to the subtle changes that environment and time and encounters make on me.
I like this image a whole lot more.
If I am working on “changing” myself instead of “fixing” myself, it means I am open to formation while still knowing that I am loved by God exactly as I am.
For with God, there is no “fixing” needed.
Not with me, not with the world.
But there is always change desired.
Change that moves us all closer to the people and the world we were created to be.
