Glass Blowing and the Theology of Making

 “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in …, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Blowing the Glass

I have been reading a book by Makoto Fujimura.  It challenges us to think about the importance of making and creating. Fujimura is an artist, so it is not surprising that he believes strongly in the importance of making and creating.   He is saying [my paraphrasing] that we should not be in the mindset of fixing, but rather creating.  That idea has been rolling around in my head, back and forth, back and forth…

I had the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do:  glass blowing.  What an amazing experience!  You slip a long steel rod into a blazing hot furnace full of white hot molten glass.  The glass sticks to the steel like honey on a spoon.  As you raise the rod a great glob of glass hangs to the end.  Immediately you have to start rotating.  Glass blowing involves a constant rotating, back and forth, back and forth, to keep the honey glass from dripping onto the floor.  Then first breaths are needed.  Strong steady breaths start to open the glass from the inside. After that you sit down at a workbench with the rod and the bulb of glass on the end waiting to be shaped.  The first step is to cradle it in a thick wad of wet newspaper.  It’s like holding it in a blanket.  With gentle pressure, the blob of honey starts to take on a more cylindrical shape—always rotating, back and forth.  

Shaping with wet newspaper

More heating, more blowing, then swinging to let gravity lengthen the cylinder.  More heating, more rotating, then tongs for opening and a paddle for flattening and a file and a tap—just a tap for breaking off the opening.  More heating and tongs are required to smooth out the opening, and voila, you have yourself a glass tumbler.

Fujimura has a lot other say about our devotion to efficiency—how dangerous it is—how utilitarian we become.  Personally, I love efficiency.  I love self-check out, and paying bills online, and getting things done.  But as I made that glass tumbler, Fujimura’s words and my own hands challenged me to think differently.  Glass blowing is not efficient.  Machines can churn out thousands of perfectly flawless glass cups in minutes or hours.  I asked the man guiding me how many glasses he could make in a day.  He said he can (astonishingly) make 50-70 per day.  That’s a lot, but it is not nearly as many as the machine produced ones.  And yet, I will cherish the two tumblers I made, and even more so, I want to cherish the experience of making them.  

Forming the finished product

Taking the time to do something artistic, beautiful, creative—what a gift.  We need this in our lives, if only to realize that is how our lives truly work.  Life is not very efficient, instead it often looks like art.  We are God’s masterpiece.  We are not glass cups churned out of a mold, but each of us is unique.  We are at times thrown in a hot furnace, we are breathed into, we are cradled and shaped, flattened, swung, squeezed, opened, broken off and smoothed.  It is a slow process, but the glass blower knows his work.  Always aware, always watching, rotating back and forth, back and forth, doing the slow work of creating a masterpiece.  If He is willing to take his time, why aren’t we?  If God takes His time with us, why are we so unwilling to allow Him to take his time with others?  Imagine if we approached our friends, our enemies, our problems, our sorrows, not as things to be fixed, but as opportunities to create something new…

I think that means we would be following in the footsteps of the master glass blower.  

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We got back to the islands safely and felt like we were thrust back into life and work immediately.  We are thankful that our travels went smoothly and that we can quickly serve meaningfully here even after absences. The Oct/Nov rains have started coming, bringing some periods of cool and needed water to crops/homes. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Both our boys have come down with a virus at school meaning they’ve had to spend a night or two at student health rather than in the dorm.  It’s always a little lonely over there and it’s no fun being sick, pray that they recover quickly and can go back to their dorms (our younger son has already spent two nights at Student Health, our older son just got sick today). Pray that we could faithfully share with others what was discussed at the leadership meetings and facilitate good discussions with our colleagues on the islands. Our organization has collected nominations for the new regional director— pray for wisdom and unity among the selection committee as they start to consider who should get this important position. Tomorrow is supposed to be a day of concentrated prayer— may our intercessions lead to powerful change and answered prayers. Mtsa’s wife is sick— pray for her healing and that he would be paid his back-pay so that he can care for his family. There is a young family visiting the islands as they consider potentially working here in the future— pray for a clarity for them as to where God is leading them. 

Confronting Racism

 This past week we’ve been going to leadership meetings with a diverse group of leaders from many nations .  Part of those meetings was to sit and think about how the past effects the present.  Specifically, how ideas of colonialism and racism have shaped the way things are and the way we are.  It’s not a very comfortable topic.  But we cannot deny history.  And the history of Africa cannot be told without talking about uncomfortable subjects like colonialism and racism.  And the history of our organization, right up to the present, cannot be told without acknowledging these uncomfortable subjects.

Beautiful jacaranda of East Africa

It is undeniable that racism and the impact of colonialism still exist in Africa.  I’m not talking about the overt “I believe my skin color makes me superior to you” type racism.  (Although that too still exists in some circles.)  I’m talking about the assumptions rooted in racist ideas and everyday stereotypes we hold onto whether we realize it or not.  For example, the speaker shared how, despite the fact that he is a college professor with years of experience, when he brings his young college students to a big cosmopolitan African city the people want his students to come and speak at their gatherings, not him.  Why?  His students are white Westerners and he is a black African man.  We would be lying if we were to say we’ve not seen many similar things like this happen in our time in Africa.  On the islands, whenever we go to a wedding, we are asked to sit in one of the places of honor.  Why?  We might sooth ourselves with thinking it is because we are foreigners and all foreigners are supposed to be honored.  But we wonder if they would so quickly realize we were foreigners if it were not for the color of our skin.  And if our skin happened to be black or brown, would they notice us??? 

As distressing as this is, it is much harder to admit that these things going on in our very midst.  Within the organization we work for, some of the attitudes and decisions that are made, often with the best of intentions, are done in a way that makes Africans in our organization feel like second-class citizens, outsiders, and strangers among us.  The meetings this week encouraged people to open up and share about their experiences.  It was so disheartening to hear these first hand stories from people we love and respect being treated badly by other people we love and respect.  We shed many tears.  Our eyes were opened.  Things we thought were in the past, we have learned, still go on, and (more heart-breaking) often happen without the perpetrators realizing what they have said or done.  Before you start thinking our organization is terrible, realize that the speaker was challenging us to say that all organizations are like this—not just ours.  There are mentalities so ingrained into us, that many times we fall into the patterns without conscious intent. 

The common defensive phrase is: “I’m not racist.”  We have to stop saying this.  Here is an important insight from the week: I am racist.  You are racist.  We don’t need to know who is reading this blog in order to say that.  We don’t need to know the color of your skin to say that.  Whoever you are, know it’s true.  In fact, even if we didn’t have hundreds of years of racist slavery and colonialism in our past history (and we do) we would still all be racist.  Saying “I’m not a racist” is like saying “I’m not a sinner.”  Many of us have been taught that we are inherently sinful.  Whether we are intentionally doing something or not our normal state is that of a sinner.  Often times, as the Anglican confession puts it, we sin out of omission “for what we have left undone.”  Is this not also the case with racism?  Whether we are doing it consciously or unconsciously, we all have tendencies in us—to make our group and our way of doing things is the best, to look down on other people, to put people into classes and relying on stereotypes to decide how to interact with people.  Add to that a few hundred years of slavery, racial ideology, and colonialism—it’s a battle for any of us to avoid being bigoted.

Enjoying weekend with our sons

Why go there?  You might ask. For the same reason we need to admit that we are sinners, or an alcoholic needs to admit that they are an alcoholic.  Only when we have named it and accepted it can we move forward.  Only then can we see who we really are and start to address it.  Only then can we start to call it out in ourselves and others.  Only then can we extend grace when we see someone else blindly, naively or unintentionally doing something racist.  Only then can we start to forgive each other, empathize with each other, and confess where we need to grow.  We won’t confess what we don’t acknowledge.  More deadly still, when we deny it and say, “I’m not a racist.” We are destroying the only path to change and growth.  We are declaring the discussion over.  We are saying we have nothing here to learn.  But if we own it.  “I am a racist.  But I don’t want to be.”  Then we open ourselves up to change.  

“You’re a racist and so am I.  You’re a sinner and so am I.  By God’s grace, we can change.”

PRAYERS ANSWERED 
We are privileged to work with amazing people from all over the world, who recognize they are sinners, are willing to listen and wanting to grow—may it be true of us also.  We are thankful for the meetings we’ve had this week that were so challenging and for the many relationships strengthened because of the time together.  We are thankful that we’ve gotten to be with our boys this weekend and are having a wonderful time with them.  Women’s gathering happened this past week with bigger numbers than the past few months, though still with several missing. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that the lessons learned this week would stick with us and lead to continued change in ourselves and in organizations.  Pray that we would not become weary in doing good—including talking about uncomfortable subjects.  Pray that we would have safe travels back to the islands and that we would be able to continue to figure out what our new rhythms of life should look like in this new season of life.  We have several island co-workers that are expecting babies (one recently gave birth to a little girl). Pray for safe and healthy pregnancies and babies. 

City Living

 I’ve been reading books about nature lately—the Serviceberry and the God of the Garden.  They’ve got me thinking about wilderness and nature and plants and trees. I love nature, but I live in a city.

Looking down from hike above our little city

Our city has only 20,000-40,000 people in it.  Not much of a city, you might say.  But everyone who comes to visit us comments on how urban it feels.  Our city may be small but it is also densely packed.  If you ask wikipedia it will say that our city is 12 square miles.  That is ludicrous.    I can walk around the entire city in about an hour, there is no way the city is 12 square miles.  So with a little help from google maps I tried to determine a more accurate size of the city.  My results: about ½ a square mile.  Crunch 40,000 people into ½ a square mile and you get a population density of 80,000 per square mile!!!  According toWikipedia that’s higher than the density of Manhattan with all it’s skyscrapers and high rise apartments.  

So the city is small—tiny even—but it is very much a city.  Complete with honking cars and motorcycles, traffic jams, concrete jungles, crime, trash and people everywhere—people laughing, yelling, crying, fighting, moving, talking, visiting, and doing business.  There is little beauty to be found here.  The city is poor so there is little budget for fixing things, let alone beautifying the surroundings.  Roads are broken down.  Houses are broken down.  Crumbling concrete and rusty tin are a constant.  Paint jobs don’t last because of a combination of low quality paint, harsh ocean salt breezes and a relentless tropical sun.  Trash is everywhere, so ever-present that people hardly notice it.  Cars and trucks are not required to pass inspections, so many of them belch out back, white or blue smoke.  In certain places they burn piles of trash.  There used to be rivers here, but they have dried up and in an effort to keep people from making the river bed a trash dump, in many places the river access has been boarded up.  You wouldn’t even know there was a river there anymore.  All of this is disheartening.  All of this can feel quite ugly.  

Beautiful sky and silhouette of distant volcano 

There are two great respites from all of this ugliness.  The first is to look up.  The city sits in a coastal plain, beneath towering green volcanic mountains.  These mountains are often skirted by clouds with a brilliant blue sky behind them.  One need only look up and find some hope.  Or you can turn around and look in the other direction—out to sea.  The ocean is always changing.  It can be blue or gray, flecked with white caps or sparkling and shimmering like glitter.  The view is framed by the edges of the island on either side, and at certain times of day, you can even see the mighty active volcano on Volcano island rising out of the sea.  It is most idyllic at sunset, but it is always beautiful.  There is beauty to be found here.

The other great respite is found in faces.  The neighbors who smile at us and greet us as we pass by.  The children shouting “bonjour” and then running away laughing.  The babies crying, crawling, nursing, sleeping.  The old men and old women who speak blessings as soon as they hear your voice.  This is the part I would like to talk more about to those nature writers.  I love a tree and a wilderness and a walk in the woods.  I hate to see wild places decimated to make way for houses or farm land.  My heart breaks with the way our tiny island is being used up, scarred, ruined, trashed.  And yet, this is where the people are.  Forty-thousand people scrunched up on one another.  People who—like all the trees and plants of the garden—need light and water and care.  Many of them are bruised and broken and dying.  Where are the gardeners, people wiling to bring light and nourishing care to those that need it?  Have they gone off to the country side, where everything looks beautiful and growing things is easy?  Where they can breath fresh air and drink in bird song and forget about these hard, ugly concrete monstrosities, full of beautiful, needy people? Maybe they go with a bit of regret, sighing for those far off ugly places called cities.

Porch plant!

I grow plants on our porch. It helps.  It is one more respite.  Sometimes they thrive.  Sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes I am faithful to water and tend them. Sometimes I neglect them.   I love to see new growth.  I love cutting away what is dead so that things are only green and beautiful.  I love to see the occasional flower.  I’ve had plants die for lack of water or too much sun.  I’ve also had some die by violence - killed by children, hungry goats, or over-watering.  I like to think that if plants can grow and beautify my porch, then the city itself can change.  Oh it will take time—to bring life and trees and hope to these people.  But I choose the ugly city because this is where the people are.  This is where opportunities abound.  I love the country.   But the people of the city call to me.  I need to get away from the city from time to time—I must, but I cannot leave them.  They need me and I find that I need them.  

PRAYERS ANSWERED
 We are thankful for an island sister opening up her home to more gatherings and inviting us to attend from time to time.  Our teammate got back and we were happy to reconnect with her. Unfortunately, she was sick the last few days of her break, but we are thankful that she was getting over it.  We were able to talk to all our kids this week and happy to hear some good reports from them. We traveled to the continent for meetings and got to attend an encouraging gathering of fellow workers on our way through the big island. We had safe travels and meetings are going well.   We are very privileged to work with people from all across the world including many from the African continent.  We are so thankful to be able to work with and learn from them.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our city, that it would be transformed, both its ecology and its people.  Pray for continued reconciliation from the recent controversy among the island family, there is still some bridge building and relationship work that needs to happen.  Pray for us as we talk about some new responsibilities and connect with people at our meetings this week. Pray for us to have humility and love and to grow in unity.  Pray that the women's gathering would happen this week and that it would be well attended.