“Wabi sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.”

Sue Bender

I needed to read this chapter today. I needed to read these words right now. “Time as a Teacher,” from Sue Bender’s Everyday Sacred: A Woman’s Journey Home fell from my bookshelf right on time. (I am learning that happens quite a bit when I am open to it.) I find the idea of wabi sabi comforting. Imperfection is comforting. Impermanence is comforting. The incomplete and the unconventional are comforting.

Bender’s words remind me to take time. She writes about the lessons in her morning cappuccino. She writes about the lessons in slow hikes. She writes about the lessons in little Sabbaths. She even writes about her computer breaking down and taking that as a sign to slow down. I understand that deeply, though I often fail to remember in my anxiety, or haste, or need to control. Impermanence can be permission to relax. Imperfection can be an invitation to grace. The incomplete can be guidance toward growth. Modesty and humility can build bridges of understanding, both of ourselves and others.

I know the best way forward is to ask, “What am I to learn from this situation?”- to look for the teacher in it all – but wabi sabi is hard. Finding beauty in all of it — the coming together and the falling apart — requires patience and willingness not just to look but to see, not just to hear but to listen, not just to learn but to grow. That is the work. That is the beauty in it all.