Listen For The Spirit of Christ Blowing
Dawson Dowty shared with me a movie, called, "Rivers and Tides."
Describing it is like trying to capture what a Van Gogh means in words, which is
to say it can’t be done. What I can share with you is my reactions to it.
It’s a film about a sculptor, who works in natural media in natural settings.
The media of his art include ice, and water, and driftwood and stones stacked
precariously on top of one another without any mortar and dust.
What you see in the film is that things that seem as if they should not work
at all as artistic images somehow mysteriously work beyond the artist’s
planning. An ice sculpture made out of broken and reformed icicles captures the
light of the sun in stunning glory. It seems to last for just a moment before it
melts and falls apart, but oh, what a moment of glory!
The driftwood he stacks should fall apart as soon as the tide comes in, but
watch! Somehow the sticks stay together much longer than you would assume, and
they float like a whirlpool caught in time.
He pounds some iron rock into dust and throws the dust in the air. It blows
in the wind and is gone in two seconds. But wait -- there it is, still blowing in
my imagination.
The work of the church is like that. It’s precarious, and yet moments of
unplanned, unexplainable glory infuse and light the imagination with the wonder
of God’s presence. What seems barely stable keeps together in images of wonder.
And the words of love we throw in the wind stay clearly in someone’s imagination
for days or months or years.
It’s summer. Listen for the Spirit of Christ blowing. And with the ordinary
stuff of your life, create something that will last a few seconds or a lifetime.
Warmly,
Andrew L. McDonald
OBOW
In its 100th year, Westminster Presbyterian Church
begins a new tradition . . . Watch for details in the
coming weeks! (More . . .) |
