I don’t know if it’s because of my new addiction to doodling on procreate or if it’s because I’ve always been drawn to art, but lately I have been writing a lot about art and spirituality. In particular, I have been writing about God as the Divine Artist.
I think that God is pretty adept at all mediums – from watercolor to collages to pottery – and I see that skill laid out before me daily in all of creation. As I work on noticing more of God’s magnificent work, all of these mediums and their evidence in our world have somehow woven their way though my writings (see here and here).
In a piece that comes out today for Ignatian Spirituality’s dotmagis blog, I write about God as the Divine Potter. This piece was inspired by my recent commitment to the Spiritual Exercises.
In the Exercises, the retreatant is asked to pray with Scripture most days, and one day a few weeks ago, I was asked to pray with the Scripture passage in Jeremiah where God is likened to a Potter. In this piece, it is noted that God can smash a pot when it is spoiled and recreate it.
I guess that is true, but in the mix of life right now, I find I much prefer the image of God fixing our cracks and chips with gold as the ancient art of Kintsugi teaches instead of smashing us down and starting over.
Here’s an excerpt of my piece:
“In Kintsugi, the cracks still show. In fact, they are meant to show. This really struck me, because I know whenever I have repaired something in the past, my goal has always been to make the cracks invisible. I want to hide the broken pieces and forget how they came to be broken in the first place. In this art form, however, it is the flaws and the cracks that are highlighted. They are made bolder, shinier, more prominent. They become the focus, a reminder that the flaws and imperfections are a necessary and important part of the story of the piece.
What if we considered the Divine Potter as a master of Kintsugi?”
To read the rest and pray with me today on the image of the Divine Potter as one who repairs us and pauses to reveal in the beauty of our cracks filled with gold go over to IgnatianSpirituality.com and leave me a comment to let me know if this resonates with you!
