Texture, pattern, shape
Rhona Cathcart
August 19, 2022
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Listen to this daily worship
Exodus 35:35 (NRSVA)
35 He has filled them with skill to do every kind of work done by an artisan or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of artisan or skilled designer.
One of the great privileges of my time in training for ministry was working for a year with Peter and Heidi Gardner. At the time, Peter was in parish ministry but now he is a pioneer minister working within the visual arts community in Glasgow, alongside Heidi. If you’ve never seen their work, please check it out!
When working with Peter and Heidi I was regularly astonished and humbled at the amount of skill and detail that went into each element of their worship installations — like the 30kg circle of salt in the centre of our worship space one harvest. 20kg wasn’t enough, 40kg was too much. 30kg — precisely measured, poured, positioned and arranged — was, somehow, perfect.
Peter and Heidi’s installations, which always use ordinary day to day materials, are usually temporary and are often integrated into worship. Their one longer term project when I was with them was the Peacemaker’s Loom which sat in the sanctuary all through the week, while one of a number of volunteers gently wove and prayed, and invited any visitors to join in and pray, reflect or talk. We wove in whatever colours were to hand and never once ran out of wool. Someone always turned up with a donation.
These times were precious and beautiful, and left me with an appreciation of God’s creativity weaving itself into the fabric of creation and the warp and weft of our lives. How wonderful that there are artists and craftspeople (I have one growing in confidence in my own congregation) able to show God’s message of love and salvation to us in creative ways.
PRAYER:
God of peace
Your creativity knows no bounds
Every day you weave different colours into our lives
Indigo compassion, vermilion courage, deep umber strength.
Thank you for those who listen with their fingers, and not just their ears
Translating ideas like love and mercy, forgiveness and salvation into a language of texture, and pattern, and shape.
That we too might see and feel and know the beauty and the pain
the power and the passion,
Amen
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