Finding Beauty in a Broken World, Parish Retreat 2009

After 9-11, Utah author and environmental advocate, Terry Tempest Williams stood facing the ocean in Maine, desperate for ‘one, wild word’ to help her ‘retrieve the poetry’ she had lost.

And the word the sea rolled back to me was “m o s a i c.”

In her book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, the word ‘mosaic’ takes her on an inspiring and thought provoking journey from the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna, Italy, through Bryce Canyon, Utah, observing endangered prairie dogs, to a Rwandan Survivors’ Village, where with Barefoot Artist Lily Weh, she helps create a memorial to the victims of the genocide.

This was a wonderful book to take with us on our annual Parish Retreat up at Bishops’ Ranch, Healdsburg. Over fifty of us (ages 6 months to over 90!), explored the idea of mosaics, both naturally occurring and humanly created, both real and metaphorical. We discussed the idea of broken pieces and how they can be reassembled (a conversation that had to be quite loud in order to ride over the happy sounds of the children working with Lego in the center of the circle!). More Parish Retreat photos!

We considered slowing down and paying attention: taking empty picture frames into the fresh air and spending time really looking at the natural mosaics all around us: in the cracks in the rich, dry soil; in the varying shades of a flowering lavender bush; in the lush and spreading oak trees. As she writes:

From a raven’s point of view, mosaic is a story told on the ground through color, pattern, and form.

From Terry Tempest Williams’ experience watching the Utah prairie dogs, we examined the interconnectedness of all things, and the priceless value of even the smallest part. We discussed the frame of the container, the drama of the interstices, and the spaces between the broken pieces, the tesserae.

We then moved with TTW to Rwanda with artist Lily Yeh to find how paying attention to the pieces, picking them up and reassembling them in community to create something of beauty can be an immensely powerful act of healing.  Lily Yeh writes:

“I will teach the men and the women in the Village how to create beautiful mosaics with what has been thrown away.”She bends down and picks up terra-cotta shards. “These are everywhere.” Lily turns to me. “We are all broken somewhere. Putting the pieces together while using vibrant color creates joy in the bleakest of places.

And then, of course, we moved on to create mosaics of our own – the fruits of which you will find in the Great Hall!

This is a beautiful, powerful, inspiring book written almost like a mosaic itself: filled with poetry, observations, fragments of federal documentations, letters, newspaper clippings, and revelation.