Afterlife: A Meditation

I recently met a woodworker who makes beautiful vases, bowls and other things. In his artwork, the natural fiber, color and grain of each unique piece of wood is incorporated into the shape and form of the piece of art. He has a series of pieces called "Afterlife," an intriguing name. Wood is an amazing material, something that was once alive, moving and growing. The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes that the tissue of wood “has come from the sun and from the earth.” A piece of art made from wood is a sort of "Afterlife" for this amazing, mysterious, once living thing.

For this particular series of turned-wood pieces, the artist has made it a point to seek out wood that has been affected (or afflicted) by fungi and worms. Fungi and worms are agents of the natural decomposition process of dead things. They eat away at the wood, rotting it, changing its color and shape and texture, altering it forever and leaving marks: dark lines and swirls in the midst of the wood's grain, holes, discoloration in various formations and patterns, even little rotted-out parts. In the pieces of art, these imperfections in the wood serve to enhance the loveliness of form, the curves and shapes of each vase or bowl. These signs of decay, the very things that threatened to destroy the wood, become an intrinsic part of the beauty of each piece of artwork.

What if this is what God does with us? What if God takes the marks and the scars from the very things that threaten to destroy us and makes them into something beautiful? We could be rotted out, disintegrated, completely eaten away and broken down, but in God’s hands we are not. In the eyes of the master artist we are always lovely. The artist - the creator - has the ability to incorporate all those marks, those scars, those smears and discolorations, even those places where we have been eaten away and left full of holes - God can work all of that into the beautiful piece of art that is our glorified form. This is certainly a part of our Afterlife. However, this beauty can also be a part of this life, if we allow God the artist to work on us, to form us and shape us and re-create us.

The things that threaten to undo us do indeed change us, and leave deeply etched marks on our souls and bodies. God doesn’t magically un-do the experiences, even the painful ones, which leave their scars and wounds. Each of us is a mess of imperfections - streaked, stained, flawed, blotched, full of empty holes, re-shaped by things that threaten to break us down and destroy the loveliness of our form. But in God's creative hands, the hands of the artist, we are made beautiful even with all this. God makes even scars shine with luminous glory, makes even the marks of pain part of our radiant beauty, makes the wounds of assault part of our loveliness. Jesus Christ himself was resurrected to his radiant glory with scars on his hands, feet and sides. The legion of un-namable things that threatens to destroy us does not have ultimate power, and does not succeed. The great artist re-creates us in luminous, radiant glory. In God, the source of all beauty, all becomes beautiful – Even some things which may seem really ugly now.

The Rev. Amanda K. Gott

Grace & St. Peter's Episcopal Church

Image from http://www.tracyturnerstudio.com/