Tree of Enchantment
While visiting St. John's last fall, I purchased a beautiful handblown glass orb called "The Tree of Enchantment." It's a crystal clear softball sized sphere with deep jeweltones blown into the very top portion. When you look inside, you see several different glass channels that look very much like the trunk of on old tree. They are the vehicle through which the colored glass flowed to the top. It's artful. It's stunning.
While taking it out of its box this week, as I've done several times, for the first time I noticed the very bottom of it. Where the glass blowers pipe connected to the bottom of the piece, it looked like a gnarled blemish. It was reminiscient of a scab I had on my knee in 8th grade after a bad fall on some rough concrete!
But even as I noticed it, I knew that without this scar... my precious purchase would have none of the beauty inside and out, that drew me to it in the first place. It would be plain, uninteresting, unable to evoke the response I had to it. Most likely I would have walked right by it as it hung in the museum shop.
Especially as part of a spiritual discipline, I think its good to think about the scabs, the blemishes, the darkend places that make up our lives. What were those situations, circumstances, relationships which held us low...but which God used to bring beauty and color into our lives? Where has the Scripture been true in your experience that God gives "beauty for ashes."
While it would be a mental illness to seek darkness for its own sake...the practice I'm suggesting in this season of Lent is one of redemption. We look at the mis-shapen places to invite God to show us how He has, or is working to redeem the days. We ponder and wonder so that The Light might show us His way.
If you'd like a guide in your pursuit... I'm only an email away. There is a Tree of Enchantment meant for Eternity inside each of us. BLESSINGS and JOY, THE CELTIC MONK
While taking it out of its box this week, as I've done several times, for the first time I noticed the very bottom of it. Where the glass blowers pipe connected to the bottom of the piece, it looked like a gnarled blemish. It was reminiscient of a scab I had on my knee in 8th grade after a bad fall on some rough concrete!
But even as I noticed it, I knew that without this scar... my precious purchase would have none of the beauty inside and out, that drew me to it in the first place. It would be plain, uninteresting, unable to evoke the response I had to it. Most likely I would have walked right by it as it hung in the museum shop.
Especially as part of a spiritual discipline, I think its good to think about the scabs, the blemishes, the darkend places that make up our lives. What were those situations, circumstances, relationships which held us low...but which God used to bring beauty and color into our lives? Where has the Scripture been true in your experience that God gives "beauty for ashes."
While it would be a mental illness to seek darkness for its own sake...the practice I'm suggesting in this season of Lent is one of redemption. We look at the mis-shapen places to invite God to show us how He has, or is working to redeem the days. We ponder and wonder so that The Light might show us His way.
If you'd like a guide in your pursuit... I'm only an email away. There is a Tree of Enchantment meant for Eternity inside each of us. BLESSINGS and JOY, THE CELTIC MONK
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