My hands are starting to itch. It’s gathering and building in the palms till finally I have to make something, anything, to feel a release. It’s a strange piece of who I think I must be. Created to create, made to build and join this and that till there’s something from all these bits of nothing. For me it’s fabric, colours that no one else thinks should go together, I join and stitch into large messes till suddenly, maybe, it all makes sense. It keeps you warm, it covers your cuddles. Other times it’s a pen or pencil on daunting white pages, far too big for me till fill. The page in all it’s crispness tests me, challenges my will and determination to risk what can not be erased. Sometimes its bake-able clay that covers my hands in white and goes a weird brown colour when you bake it too long. It tries to make life harder for me, giving up the shape I gave it behind the closed oven door. Sometimes the itch is a picture my camera needs help taking, needs my eye to see before the shutter can be pressed.
Creating is something that doesn’t always come naturally to me. Sometimes its amazing, everything just falls out and comes together like it was always supposed to be, and other times it looks like some random kid threw up over everything. But I love art. I love the feeling of starting out, knowing or not having a clue what you’re going to find in the end. I love having paint all over my hands and pencil smudged on my fingers. I love threading the needle and being able to sew for hours at a time.
Did God feel this way when he stitched the veins into leaves and drew the outline of beaches on the shore? Did he laugh at the platypus the way I do at the doodles I draw? Did he ever try his hand more than once at the stars in the sky as I have with the freckles on my characters faces?
What ever God felt when he put the light in the sky and painted the first and last sunrise, I like to think that it’s pieces of that feeling and that love for creating, that has been sprinkled into my life. That’s it’s God’s love for creation that puts the itch in my hands till something, anything, is made. I like to think that bits and pieces of what caused the stars to be made is in me, in how I look at the pebbles on the beach till suddenly I see castles.
God never wanted to be alone in creating this world, he loves the things we make. He loves how our hands can bless each other, bring communities together and help strangers feel like they aren’t alone. We are called to co-create with the creator of every colour and shade, every sound and note.
We are meant for more than capturing and repeating, so if you want to try to make something new, even if it’s only new to you, do it! Paint that painting of purple socks, sew that life-size shark from Jaws, plant gardens in the shape of the Death star and marvel at the colours that come through the leaves. Creation is everywhere, so go make something from nothing.
Peace Be The Journey 