Not All Sackcloth and Ashes
I’m a grown woman who will be teaching a course in strategic leadership at the university. I should be reading books about Bayesian probability and the future of the Euro. As a Christian, I should also be elbow-deep in C.S. Lewis books and various translations of the Bible. And yet, the coffee table in my living room – one of the places I most love to read — looks like this:
(Well, actually it looks like this, plus a half-dozen shelter magazines, tatty and dog-eared from excessive reading.)
I love – really love – reading about design.
There, I said it.
While the bible focuses more on developing inner beauty than focusing on exterior matters, there certainly seems to be a place in God’s kingdom for beautiful things and the people who make them:
Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. (Exodus 35:30-35)
If we are made in His image, then surely our ability to create beauty is encouraged.
Even though ours is a consumer society, and there is a focus on accumulating a lot of stuff, there seems to be less focus on beautiful design and craftsmanship. Clothes and home furnishings are all but disposable and I’m not sure our homes are the havens they are meant to be. I like the idea of better rather than more. The bible talks a lot about home, describing it often as a place of security and comfort and family. One of my favourite psalms tells how ”Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar.” (Psalm 84:3) The desire to create a lovely home and nest seems God-given, and yet these days it seems like a luxury to be able to focus on such things.
I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that I want to use this space to write not only about my faith journey, but about life in general. For me, creating a nice home, doing good work, raising my family well, loving the people in my life, taking care of myself, and bringing more joy into the world is completely intertwined with my faith.
And while I’m not sure that writing about, say, the gorgeous tapestries from the 1700s that Karl Lagerfeld has in his apartment is entirely suitable fodder for this blog (mind you, the subject matter is the story of Esther…) I do hope you’ll indulge me from time to time.
