Saturday, February 4, 2012

Intricacies

CatherineCarrGlassUK

I was so pleased when Catherine Carr gave permission to use a photograph of her work. I chose this because it shows the form her glass process gives to the crocheted piece, and because the pineapple pattern was one of my mother’s favorites.

I was engulfed by a number of thoughts when I looked at these pieces. How does one take cotton thread, encase it in glass – without destroying the thread?  Catherine knows. 

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. (Mark 9:23 KJV)

We get a hint, an idea, read where someone has accomplished something ordinary but extraordinary – and it is taken a step further, because someone believed they could do it.  And, they did it.

Just a little further in Mark 9, Jesus spoke of His death and resurrection. That resulted in confusion among his disciples:

But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. (Mark 9:32 KJV)

Do you wonder how many questions Catherine Carr had to ask and understand to complete her process?  We should never be afraid to ask secular or spiritual questions – how else are we to learn and that that one step further?

As to the spiritual, God already knows. That example is in this same chapter:

And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest. And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. (Mark 9:33-35 KJV)

Again, Catherine’s work displays the truth of this example.  As intricate as it is, as beautiful as it is, her sales depend on pleasing the buyer. In this secular world, she is the servant of those who purchase her goods – and has become among the first in her field by doing so.

Shouldn’t we set those same goals for both our secular and spiritual lives?  To become the best, the first, in what we do?  My great-grandsons are spending today in a wrestling tournament, striving to be the best in their class.  To do so, they must be the servant of the time-keeper, the referee, their coach, their parents, their diet – a servant of all necessary to accomplish their goals.

Should we do any less in our spiritual lives, where Christ gave us the gist of all the laws?

And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:28-31 KJV)

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