Words of Hope: Artist Work
Shann and I went with our daughter Bella as part of a ministry team to work with children born into brothels. Mumbai, India has buildings housing brothels that have been operational for over two hundred years, the oldest continuous working brothels in the world.
We went with a group of people, two who taught the work of Kintsugi which is the art of mending valuable porcelain or stoneware with gold. What was broken becomes more beautiful and valuable than before in the hands of the Kintsugi master.
I consider what metaphorical elements I work with each day. Ignatius would say the thoughts of the heart shape where and who we become. Our emotions reveal our lives and the thoughts point us in that direction.
I tend to live in the emotion of fear. I come from a long line of professional worriers. My grandmother believed worrying helped ward off bad things that happen.
If I am in an unconscious place of worry or anxiety, what my life produces is not healthy or generative.
It begins in my mind as some snippet of truth—some fact that my mind has latched on to, in an anxious state.
I then imagine a possible outcome, scenario or supposition made from my own wounded ego or fear and then mould this suspicion with the known truth. This unholy union leaves fissures in my spirit where gratitude, joy, peace of life drain out like a cracked cup.
If however, I take the known truth and adopt a posture of gratitude and praise- the union becomes a place for God to dwell, a cup for peace and joy to overflow. The glue is trust and the unseen hope to believe the great Artist is mending all broken things.
This union of a fact with the discipline of gratitude allows God to work His art.
“He rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins.
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Through Him everything was created—things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, including all powers and authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He existed before everything, and in Him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1: 13-17
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