You might have a longer shelf life spending most days on the dark side of the moon.”

Gorilla Glue General open, I adjusted my face mask and prepared for my next surgery, a headless king from the Middle East. An overzealous game of Wii table tennis sent the ill-fated Magi toppling.  A little drop and once again his regal head perched atop flowing robe — though now a bit tilted. Forevermore this most learned of wooden men saddled with a quizzical stance appearing to have no clue why he hauled himself thousands of miles on the back of a camel to present incense to a lowly infant. He can’t worship baby Jesus like that. Next year, I’ll point him in the direction of the donkey and sheep. It will appear that he smells some bad odor.

 Next up Michael Vick. Poor guy got knocked off the tree and lost his left hand and right leg below the knee. Ouch. Better fix him up before his 11 month offseason. I never could find his left hand poised to throw the football. Guess that won’t handicap him since he’s more of a scrambler.

While everyone cleaned out closets and made resolutions to accomplish more, I was up to my neck piecing together broken stuff with glue. That’s my New Year’s Resolution: to break more stuff in 2010. This will be the decade to buy stock in Elmer’s and stockpile glue-gun sticks. As a result of inhaling too many glue fumes, it finally sunk in that with living wide open…things break. 

 Like people. Doctors slap casts on fractured bones and pull together bits of skin and sew away. Burned, torn and defeated inside and out, those are marks of a full life in a shell of flesh. In 2010, I resolve to take down the crystal and the china. Wear my grandmother’s jewelry everyday rather than leave it to tarnish in some box. Risk a hand falling off during a pickup football game with my children.

  I banish fears of having to piece favorite vases together like a three dimensional Picasso oil. It’s scary. No one wants to risk having an incomplete set of heirloom Wedgewood or retreating into a closet so scars will heal before anybody sees.

 Choose to spend life wrapped in tissue paper, crammed in a cardboard box in a darkened attic? You might have a longer shelf life, but in the end, you’ll be wrinkled, have an aching back and pallor akin to spending most days on the dark side of the moon. In brokenness, we find the key to being truly whole.

I shall break things this year. Who wants to avoid dings and dents but live a reality encased in a tarnish straightjacket? I’d much rather spend forever staring down at baby Jesus with a crick in my neck.