Heritage of Faith

My life has been very different from most of the women in my family (maternal side). Themes and traits run through the 4 generations, similarities, but I generally am quite aware of a separation, a distance, a canyon between common ground.

Some days, however, that is bridged in a moment without even their presence.

I was hit with that feeling tonight in small group, as I have been many times in the last year- ever since the idea of heritage of faith came up in a teaching...somewhere...and then again in prayer. I am fortunate in that- though I walked away from God and faith for several years, I am part of a line of women who believe. As we sat and prayed together, someone spoke with this momentary hitch in their voice, and I was reminded so strongly of sitting, as a kid, in my great-grandmother's living room, listening to my grandma and great-grandma pray and read the Bible. I was so bored during those summer trips, and I was so uncomfortable sitting in that still hot living room with the window air conditioner, and I never understood why the two of them cried, why their voices broke, why there were great big pauses in their prayers. I never understood the weight (and the wait lol) of why we sat there. But now, I am so grateful to have that memory. I come from a line of women of powerful faith, women who know the Holy Spirit- even if I had no idea then. It is always such a gift to remember this, to know that I pray like them now-- I hope someday my belief will roll off my as theirs did/does off of them.

I have been thinking lately about the individual nature of belief in Christ, how God reveals the same things over and over to his followers as they each grow and mature, each following this same path to Him trodden by millions over the generations. It is always a new faith to each believer, to each generation. It has to be learned new, learned personally. But inheritance, earthly inheritance, can have special value too.


....and relating to art....

'Because we are denied knowledge of our history, we are deprived of standing upon each other's shoulders and building upon each other's hard earned accomplishments. Instead we are condemned to repeat what others have done before us and thus we continually reinvent the wheel.'

-Judy Chicago

Just because we each have to learn on our own doesn't mean we have to reinvent the wheel. There is so much to be gained from reflecting on our own heritage, even if we do have to do it ourselves too.

-the work of a skilled craftsman-

I will be the first to admit that art seems like the least important of things I could do with my time.  It feels self-serving and, some days, narcissistic and valueless.  Like shouting into the void.  Particularly as a Christian.  I can't shake the feeling from when I was a kid that art just wasn't something that God wanted or had any use for.

As an adult, in a very different kind of church, I have heard all of the teachings on artists being leaders in society and it therefore being important to have followers of Jesus in the arts; the teachings on art as a form of worship; and the teachings on the creative spirit of God being expressed through the artist.  None of that ever connected with me, and, honestly, I'm not ever planning to make preachy art or art specifically about God or done in a time of worship (which in my mind implies a time without critique).....so, why, as a Christian, is art as worth my time as many of the other things I do?  After all, even going to work has a more biblical basis.

Then I remembered the temple and the tabernacle.  When I read the Bible through for the first time, I made myself read the temple plans-- each and every time they occur-- and the instructions for the tabernacle word for word.  I was blown away by the phrase 'the work of a skilled craftsman'.  I'm not sure how many times that phrase occurs (and phrases naming specific crafts like perfumers, embroiders etc.) in Exodus, but every time, it indicates something made well, something beautiful, and something that God deemed necessary.  He named artists of the day specifically, over and over again.

At the beginning of the text, the Lord says to Moses, 'I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you.' (Exodus 31:6)  I don't know what I want to make, what I should make, or even if I have been commanded to make anything.  But I know the Lord and how He often works in people.  I think it unlikely He meant 'I have supernaturally endowed these people right now with heretofore unknown skills which they have never practice and now I would like them to use those skills for the first and only time to make something important, you know just a little bit important like the dwelling place of Most Holy God.'  I find it much more likely that He meant He had provided these skills for the craftsmen over a lifetime, shaping them to be ready for this significant task through practice and hard work-- in a sense, destining them for it.

Even Jesus practiced a craft this way: carpentry, learning how wood works and how to bend it to your will (in a natural way) is not quick or easy.  (btw how cool would it be to have been descended from someone in Nazareth and get to tell all your friends, 'Oh, yeah, the kitchen table?  Yeah, it's cool.  My great-great-great-great.....grandmother's neighbor made it.  Yeah, his name was Jesus.  It's no big thing.')

So maybe practicing my craft should take a higher priority.  Maybe not maybe.  Maybe for sure.  Because God can use it--He, after all, values beauty too.