Our life as art

Spiritual resource to share: our calling

Cori (CB) and Regula and friend making books

We just had our second Science and Health discussion group meeting tonight. A question popped up about the necessity of problems - how they provide a necessary incentive to understand God more. One thought is that without problems, we would not want to take the time to explore what it means to be spiritual.

Although I wholeheartedly agree that problems have often catapulted me into understanding more about God, there was something about dignifying problems in this way that didn't sit right with me.

I think that there is something spiritually innate in us all, and that we are called to bring that forth in our lives. Ultimately, our purpose is not to overcome problems, but to glorify God. When problems show up, we get rid of them. The problem itself doesn't come because: we are not spiritual enough, we are being punished for bad thinking, or we need a boost to get us moving in the direction of God. A problem is a distraction from our calling and the whole purpose of the problem is to be corrected. It doesn't define us or confine us!

It is as if we have been given the full spectrum of colors on a palette and a blank canvas. We are free to create. If a bee comes by (aka the problem), we need to get rid of it, so that we can do what we were made to do.

I talked to my husband (an artist blacksmith) and a friend (a bookmaker) and saw how clear it was to them that they were called to do their work. They deal with whatever distractions may arise, but they have a clear focus on their calling and what their work is all about. They play with spiritual ideas and give them a tangible form. And there is great joy in this!

My husband shared: "Sometime in my late thirties, I did a little blacksmithing and the whole world opened up. It felt like I was coming home to something that just made sense. It is hard not to follow a path when it calls to you so strongly ---- and it is fun."

My friend Cori has been an artist of various mediums forever. She always stretches my ideas of things, like what it means to read a book. In her bookmaking work, she finds poems and prose and works with other artists to bring out the meaning of the words in a visual way and then makes the book become an interactive experience. Who would have thought that a book can be the vehicle - the context - for a poem?


It's easy to see that we are all called to be artists of sorts: of healing, of parenting, of planning, as well as of metal, of books and of color. I can see more clearly what Mary Baker Eddy says when she writes:
"Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply, — to manifest His power. Man is not made to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not subjection."

In answer to the question "What am I?" comes a response that could be true of all who are folowing their calling: "I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing."*

*First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 165
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