You’re right, i do have a bit of a thing about utility, as can be seen in this thread, and if you have the time i think its quite an interesting discussion that developed between me, Robb and Tim as well as a couple of others – i’d certainly be interested in your thoughts on it Pat (and anyone else reading this, for that matter).

And you’re right that a large part of my excitement as i started to formulate the above essay was in finding a really fitting metaphore for a story that really already existed in that it is the story i tell myself about me.

But i would affirm the following points:

1) Despite its aesthetic prettiness, i wouldn’t have bought the lampshade as an ornament – if i didn’t think i could fix it so that it would be able to perform its intended function i wouldn’t have bought it.

2) i do get genuinely very frustrated when i feel like i am making a hash of life, and feeling dysfunctional is really not a good feeling. Conversely, managing to do life well – and especially being helpful to other people – gives me a lot of satisfaction/feeling of self worth. Whether that’s healthy or not i don’t know, but it is true.

3) There is a celebration inherent in something good that had been taken away being returned to a person or object. Whether that is the ability to walk, or the ability to hang from a lamp, or a feeling of value or self worth*. These things make people’s hearts sing in an utterly disproportionate way. I think the fact that human beings resonate so strongly with the joy of some attribute or ability being returned says a lot about the human condition. I’m not quite sure how a redemption story is a redemption story unless something good that was lacking is returned to the subject of the story?

So i guess my question back is: Do you have in mind a redemption story that is about something being returned to us (humanity) that is not about utility, or do you have in mind a story that is about “beauty, brokeness and resurrection”, but that is not a redemption story?

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*And yes such feelings can come from many sources, not all linked to utility, but utility is one source of this.

So my instinctive question is…..why do you couch your story so strongly in terms of utility? Or to come at it another way – why does beauty have to be allied to functional usefullnes in order for it to have meaning and value? I guess what I’m fumbling towards is the feeling that perhaps the lampshade is not the source but has instead become the instrument of a story you already know…… and thus to wondering whether if one could actually let go of that narrative for a moment, your lampshade could open up the door to a very different articulation of the connections between beauty, brokeness and resurrection. Does that make any kind of sense? Regards, Pat