Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I am not the most artistic person in the world. My wife on the other hand is a gifted artist, having made her first career as a medical illustrator. We are both enrolled in a class at our church where we are making personal glass mosaics in the theme of Bountiful Abundance. Here are our two designs

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Her Tree of Life is truly impressive and has taken hours and hours to construct. She carefully chose and cut each piece and assembled it into a beautiful portrayal of nature’s bounty.

I on the other hand went with the scraps and shrapnel of former artists’ cast offs, picking and choosing pieces that I could arrange to form my image – The Spiral of Life. Mine will take a lot of forgiving grout to finish up.

For her, this new art form came naturally. For me it was a stretch. I just feel blessed to be part of a church community where stretching comes naturally.

The arts have been a major source of creativity and freedom in our community for at least a generation. This year’s offerings include an artist-in-residence: I think this artist is our sixth! This past weekend our church hosted a Celtic Music Festival and a while back we convened a complete read-through of Paradise Lost. Two autumns ago we produced an awesome spectacle at St. Mark’s Cathedral entitled a Celebration of the Tree of Life in the Time of the Great Turning. This event featured Michael Meade and Joanna Macy with the Spirit of the Sound Choir and Gina Sala providing music. It included a liturgical dance troupe and a Sufi dancer and it marked the challenge of ecological decline with a tempered hope for a more positive future. 600 people attended.

An event like that is a far cry from my little glass mosaic made up out of found pieces. And yet the same thread connects them both and helps weave our community together. A Christian community needs to be a creative community since our theology sees us as co-creators with God.

Our Season of Bountiful Abundance at St. Andrew’s is unleashing the creative spirit in many of us, from the very young to the very old. In honoring the creative spark we honor the God who brought all creation into being. We join in that great spiral of God’s unfolding creation. It is amazing what a few arranged pieces of broken glass can turn into if you let the spirit move you.