On DIY Crafts and the Imago Dei

Last semester I took a class called Perspectives on Communications. Our conversation settled for a while on the topic of co-creation—a favorite of Dr. Cobbey and Madeleine L'Engle— about what it means to create things as creations of God. We make along side the Maker, a beautiful example of God working redemption through our hands and our minds. All things are made through Him, and sometimes He uses us to make them. 

While I planned to practice co-creating in Washington DC, constructing a healthy political environment in one fail swoop as a summer intern, I ended up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina at Camp Merri-Mac teaching DIY crafts. 

This type of co-creation was much more literal than expected, it felt much more trite and I struggled to find the theological purpose of friendship bracelets and knick-knacks. A dear friend, wiser and craftier than I, a woman who sees the beauty of every small vignette she encounters, extolled the value of making small things. She encouraged me to see past the seemingly average activities I could be doing to find the truth of DIY crafts, to teach theology through macramé and modge-podge without uttering a Bible verse. 

I have recently been obsessed with the Imago Dei, turning every situation into an example of our image bearing, and she challenged me to do the same at camp but in action instead of in the scholarly commotion in which I encompass myself. Instead of just thinking and talking about being the Image of God, to participate actively in my kinship with Christ through making. 

As I prepared, this was the posture I took upon myself: I would teach skills and generosity, not make random crap. Somehow I would reveal co-creation to the 6 year old and the 16 year old alike. I would show them how valuable they were in the image of God and how beautiful God was—all with scissors and glue sticks. Yes, I would do this. 

Feebly, I attempted.  The last point of my safety talk, after "you better listen to me" and "don't eat the glue sticks," was less safety related and felt clichéd as I recited:"There are no mistakes here, everything you make is beautiful and if it isn’t it will be soon. We make things because God makes things and we are made in his image, so lets be a little more like Jesus and make some crafts.”This line, “let’s be a little more like Jesus and make some crafts” became something of a catch phrase that echoed in my head eight-safety talks later. It had stumbled out of my mouth the first time and I almost laughed at myself when it did, how silly I sounded. Yet, I reflected I realized it was an act of grace. God was teaching me about his image as I attempted to teach about his image. Because when we make crafts we are a little more like Jesus, who stood over the empty waters and made something out of nothing; so we stand over empty tables and we make things too. 

I had joked before leaving with that same beauty-finding friend, about preaching theology about co-creation over the girls as they made friendship bracelets. I felt foolish attempting to do so in my own power, during my safety talk and with the small life lessons I had to impart tied into cross-stitching knots. It seemed instead that I was being preached to, by their small hands and wild imaginations taking projects and making them art, useful and generous, recycled and restorative. 

To show a girl how something discarded can turn into something beautiful in her hands or to watch her face as she makes something promptly to give it away as a gift; to establish her by validating the products of her imagination or to empower her by showing her she can indeed conquer small frustrations— this is deep theology. 

For the ridged and uncreative perfectionist I am it has been not only deep but hard theology. To tell a room of fifteen girls that there are no mistakes is a difficult rule to maintain. It is much easier to look at something you think is gauche and attempt to push it to a cleaner aesthetic than to encourage the beauty of a six-year-old’s ingenuity. It is much easier to give up on the girl who just isn’t understanding the cross part of cross stitching than it is the keep repeating, “No, you are not bad at this, you just are not good yet. You will be good soon, so soon” as you untangle her knots. This became even harder as I worked along side them. I miscounted my long term cross stitching project and it turned out catawampus, to which I complained aloud, and to which a camper promptly replied “there are no mistakes in DIY crafts, Hannah!” Talk about deep and hard theology. 

To create a space where girls are not afraid to try anything because they know that there is no failing, a space where the things she thinks and makes are beautiful, is to create a space where God is present. God has been present, along side the North Carolina humidity, in the top room of an old barn with a tin roof where I make crafts four hours a day. 

There have been few times when I have seen the image of God more fully than in a first grader proudly explaining why she put which magazine cut-out pictures on her collage journal. There is power in creating things, power in expressing ourselves through simple making, by allowing the image of God in us to manifest itself through our hands. There have been few times when I have felt the empowering force of redemption more fully than when seeing a thirteen year old go from frustratedly making knots to enthusiastically tying anchoring the final cross-stitch on her monogram. Learning to create again has shown me how empowering redemption can be when we find it tangibly. The restoration of the Gospel is so easily found if you take the time to look. 

Augustine and Aquinas never revealed the truth of image bearing as well as four periods a day of DIY Crafts. I’ve never understood co-creation better than after a month of chopped magazine scrap sweeping, friendship bracelet string cutting, and small-eyed needle threading. I have seen the face of God so clearly in the motivated smiles, nimble hands, and wild minds of campers. Here’s to another month and a half of seeing so much more.  

-H

Sacramental

I didn't take Communion until I was 13. 

The Southern Baptist church I grew up in takes its sacraments seriously, although it does not call them that. Following an “evangelical salvation experience," believer’s baptism is the pinnacle act of a Southern Baptist childhood. You get saved, get baptized, and then you can take the Lord’s Supper. This was always understood, if you hadn’t been brave enough to step up in front of the church and say, “I’m saved only in the cross of Christ” and get dunked, then you didn’t get to sit at the Communion table.

My “evangelical salvation experience” left much to be desired—as it does for many church kids who grow up learning to accept Jesus into their hearts the same way they learn how to love their parents—but it still came a little later than my friends. The shame of being behind even applies to salvation in Sunday school classes. So, I forwent being baptized because a public declaration of salvation was a public declaration of being late to the party. This was something I had to work through, and doing so was a pivotal point of my spiritual growth. 

My church does Communion quarterly, my dad always told me this is because it is supposed to be special, not an every Sunday routine. The nice old, men ushers would walk slowly to the front, and we would all wait for the seemly lengthy amount of time it took to properly distribute the stacked silver plates. Then they went about systematically passing these silver stacks around until everyone has one pale little cracker and a centimeter of grape juice in a tiny thick plastic cup. We would sit quietly as the organ played and everyone passed. Then the men would make their way back up, and the pastor would read one of the standard passages about the night Jesus was betrayed. 

Before November of 2009, I would let the plate pass by me the fourth Sunday of every third month, embarrassed and concerned what everyone thought, but not as concerned as I was about taking Communion falsely, before I was fully committed.

Instead, I sat back and watched as everyone simultaneously threw their heads back to drink the grape juice blood out of the tiny thick plastic cup that would then be quickly stacked and slid into their church chair nook. There was so much unity in that movement. Many profess the unity of a single alter cup, the walk up and drink method; I profess the unity of the simultaneous throwing back of heads; the unity of chomping small round crackers together; the unity of the Sunday afternoon church family lunches at the fast-food restaurant across the street. Somehow in taking His Body, we become His Body. Somehow by being His Body, we find the joy of salvation more fully together.

I was 13 when I finally decided to look past the people I thought were looking at me and get baptized. The next Sunday I took communion for the first time. These two sacraments are so woven in my mind that they are hard to separate. My first communion wasn’t preceded by a class; I didn’t buy a new dress, no one knew it was momentous but me. When I finally partook I felt the unity of the body, not just the people surrounding me, but the greater body who called back to the beauty of a simple meal and a wooden cross and I cried to myself quietly. I felt the grafting in to the body of Christ then more tangibly than during my evangelical conversion or my Baptist dunking. The reality of God’s sacrifice resonated in me more deeply than ever after “take and drink” and before the benediction. 

Baptism was my public confession to God; Communion is God’s public confession to me. 

Then and still now I let the small cracker that had to have been purchased from some religious superstore roll around my tongue as I considered what it meant that Jesus was broken, broken and bruised and beat, for my sins. That truth snaps and sits dry in your throat, lingers in your mouth longer than you wished it would. It begs for something more. But then, then, I taste how sweet the small sip of juice is after a morning of forgotten breakfast. The blood from the cup of the covenant is sweet, it was hard and bitter and it flowed because of sin and for sin, but it is as sweet as poorly mixed grape juice concentrate on a Sunday morning. The little bit of juice is enough to wash down the brokenness of a dry cracker just as the blood washed down the pain of his broken body. It is the atonement being professed in the simplest way: sin has broken the bread and Christ has conquered with the cup. 

The Lord’s Supper is a physical reminder sitting in my stomach reminding me of the simple truth that holds me afloat. When I am flooded by confusion and doubt, when I lack the understanding I desire and feel disconnected from the truth, communion sits in my stomach and reminds me that salvation, the salvation of a confusing big God who mysteriously atoned for the sins of the world on a cross, is as easy as a cracker and a sip of juice.

When I got to college people started telling me I didn't understand the sacraments because I had never called them that before, because I didn't know the word Eucharist and didn't want to take the wine at Anglican Church they said I didn't know the mystery of the body and the blood. It was embarrassing the first time I crossed my arms at the Episcopal alter on a Sunday visit. When I got back to the pew and my friends asked me why I hadn’t received, I just shrugged my shoulders and pretended I wasn’t ashamed of my ingrained Southern Baptist discomfort with alcohol. That Eucharist wouldn’t have been the sacramental promise that God and I had worked out; it would have just been my first drink of watered-down wine. 

I have thought deeply and felt fully what it means to take the body and blood—this doesn’t change because I don’t agree with the doctrines of substantiation and don’t particularly prefer using pita bread and wine. It makes me nervous to consider that people think my quarterly cracker and grape juice aren’t sacred. They are deeply sacred to me and they call back to my baptism and my salvation. They remind me how unable I am to save myself. Communion is deeply personal and deeply communal, it is a mystery—a mystery I know full well.

The Lord’s Supper is a call. To remember—remember the truth of a savior who atoned for sin. Who loved and professed Himself through community and a meal, through the simplicity of bread and cup and the mystery of the metaphor they represent. To remember the love of a convent that was created, fulfilled, and made new by a God so big, gracious, and just we cannot wrap our heads around Him. This covenant that was impossible for me to complete, it provides God to me even though I can’t do my part. The blood of Jesus came and fulfilled that covenant for me. It tore the veil that separated me and let the light of salvation pour down on me, and so I get to sit and drink it in like grape juice. 

These are my sacraments; they are God being real to me because of my being real to God. 

a letter to my future daughter/a letter to myself/things I need to get off my chest

I've had a lot of things on my mind lately.
Things I want to make sure my daughter,
if I ever have one,
understands.
Things I need to hear,
and that I'm still working to understand.
Things that have been bearing down on my chest 
and rolling around on my tongue.
About the warped world view 
that I've always legalistically held myself to
that I'm beginning to walk out of:
a view on modesty that tells me my body 
is just something to cover up with clothes,
and purity that tells me completeness 
comes from the ring on my finger,
and relationships that tells me
it's alright for anyone but Jesus
to claim personal ownership over my heart.
About the little idolatries I find 
laced in my personal culture.
And I know that this blog post isn't going to cover
all of the nuances and points that need to be discussed
but it's just a few things I think should be said,
all with a heaping dose of grace.
So here's a letter, I guess, 
to the future daughter who I may not have
or to any daughter, I guess,
or really just to myself.

---

Dear daughters and sisters and lovers of Jesus,

Let's talk about modesty.
Sure we can talk about clothes, 
if you want.
And hemlines and brastraps,
if you want.
But, actually,
I'm incredibly sick of the idea 
that modesty is about what you're wearing.
A cultural concept that turns women (but never men) 
into mere visual objects
who are responsible for the sin and folly of their brothers,
capable of being judged at a glance.
Refuse to accept this modesty culture.
Instead of letting what you wear define your identity
Every morning look in the mirror and ask yourself:
Is your heart as modest as your dress?
Are you looking to be noticed or to notice?
Are you dressing for yourself or someone else?
Does someone look at you and say:
"Man she has so much respect and love for herself and everyone around her and her Creator?"
What about beyond your clothes?
Is your attitude that of a servant who cares deeply and loves unconditionally and wants to be like Jesus?
Is your spirit tuned to God's ear?
Do you take the very nature of a servant 
like you are called to in Philippians?
That body is this incredible awesome valuable gift.
It can swim and jump and dance and kick.
It holds a beautiful magnificent reflective heart and mind and soul.
It was perfectly formed in your mothers womb 
and God said it was very good.
Go read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
and think about it real hard.
God is dwelling in that body,
in those clothes.
Are you treating it with the respect it deserves?
Are you dressing it in a way that recognizes 
that you have some pretty freaking precious cargo?

Modesty culture's BFF is purity culture.
And yeah, 
purity is pretty rad,
in it's right context.
But we have this terrible way of making it all about 
sex, sex, sex.
About saving your self 
and the virtuous true love, waiting away.
Not only does this purity culture often breed deep hurt and fear,
without room for mistakes without heavy shame,
or even healthy boundaries and relationship growth,
but it perpetuates the idea 
that marriage is somehow the goal of it all,
or that sex is the goal of it all.
But I mean they go together, right?
So we put on rings that we buy for our thirteen year-old selves
at the Christian bookstore
(or maybe that was just me)
and write long sweet middle school letters to the husband
we have no idea actually exists or not
(just me again?).
And so your ring finger determine your wholeness
and "Dear Future Husband" keeps your heart on hold.
But that seems pretty messed up, 
if you think about it,
because,
No one determines your wholeness but Jesus.
And your life should never be put on hold.
You are capable of loving Jesus 
fully and completely and deeply 
all by yourself.
Actually you can only love Jesus 
fully and completely and deeply 
when it starts by yourself.
Then you get to add beautiful things like community,
and friends,
and maybe Mr. Right Husband man 
who wrote letters to you too;
who you can live a cool adventurous life with 
and who can push you to love Jesus more together.
But those things will let you down.
Jesus will not.
Those things might not come.
Jesus already is.
Purity culture creates this idea 
that your life is in the waiting
for some magic other half 
who's going to come and make everything start.
For a wedding day 
that somehow changes everything.
Well, guess what, it's already started,
and you're going to miss out 
on the fullness of life right now.
Don't get me wrong
You are called to be pure,
but not just to keep your legs closed
and not hold hands with anyone
But to be pure in your actions and your thoughts
and to think about holy, glorifying beautiful things 
and do them.
To read Philippians 4:8 and actually live it
Don't ever let anyone lead you to believe 
that purity is just about sex.
Don't ever let anyone lead you to believe 
that purity is anything less 
than being like Jesus.

Finally, let's talk about relationships.
Because somehow,
the idea that a father is the proprietor of his daughter
has persisted through dowries and radicalism
and is still a normal thing that people are just cool with.
There are applications and conversations where
ownership is the overtone,
and the trustworthy human soul of a daughter
is stifled by the men claiming "over her."
So daughters, 
Work to be strong headed and wise.
Respect your parents, both of them,
but do not let them take 
the freedom and identity you find in Christ.
Trust that you love Jesus enough to know who doesn't; 
that you make wise decisions that benefit you and your future.
If anyone thinks that he can come and ask your father for you,
look him in the eyes 
and ask him how many camels he's going to bring
and then tell him 
that he should probably stay away from you for a long time.
When you're old enough to be thinking 
about things like dating and marriage,
you are responsible for yourself,
and your decisions,
and your affiliations,
and your relationship with Jesus, 
and your relationship with others.
No one else is but you.
Because you are not an object to be had.
You are not a prize to be won,
a treasure to be conquered,
or a transaction to be made.
You are a beautiful,
brilliant human being
made in the Image of a beautiful,
brilliant Creator 
Anyone who truly loves you will treat you like it.
Refuse to be treated as anything less than that;
refuse to treat anyone else as anything less than that.
You are God's.
Period.
No one else's.
No husband, parent, or communist dictator.
So sure, accept blessings but never let anyone try to issue you permission.
You will make mistakes
and get hurt.
Learn from them;
love in them.
Let your relationships draw you to God.

Please, don't idolize modesty.
Please, don't idolize purity. 
Please, don't idolize relationships.
You deserve more 
than to believe the lies culture is trying to feed you. 
God has deeper plans for all of those things 
than to oppress you and make your heart ache. 
Find the beauty of Jesus 
by seeking to have a heart that's modest and humble and willing to serve. 
Find the beauty of Jesus
by working with fear and trembling to to make yourself full of things that are right and true and pure.
Find the beauty of Jesus 
by refusing to let anyone cheat you of your freedom in Him.
Use modesty and purity and relationships
as tools to pull you deeper into God.
Anything less isn't worth it.

-H

i am//

I am still in the making.
I am ugly rouge clay whipping around a wheel,
large hands slowly shaping me 
into a respectable form that will have some use:
to quench a thirst 
or hold some daffodils.
But right now I am only just a lump of clay, 
spinning fast on a wobbly platform,
splashing water and making a mess,
still mostly disoriented.
I am being pushed hard into shape by my Maker,
getting bent in ways I am not sure I want to get bent, 
stretching in ways I did not know I could stretch,
but being molded for my good.
Slowly, a form is starting to emerge;
glimpses of purpose come into view.
I am not yet who I will be,
I am changing, I am becoming.
I am getting there.

over-achieved

Lately I’ve been realizing how task-driven the world is--

How task driven I am

Everything is about doing something

Accomplishment is the only scale of value left for humanity

We remember people based on what they did not who they were

Actions do not flow from character, actions now stand-alone

Everyone feels the need to get the best grade and to get into the best program and to leave some kind of stamp on civilization by doing something great

Or maybe that’s just me

My value seems to be inextricably tied up in how much I have done

What acceptance letters have come through my mailbox

Who I have in my address book

Maybe how smart I am

But all smart is these days is the potential to achieve

Every possible chance I get I attempt to “succeed” more

In the hope that this achievement will be the one that knocks me up a peg

Gets me a little more respect

Or standing

Or maybe even salvation?

Or maybe just build my resume so in the future I can accomplish more

Everything is a means to an end

The cycle never stops

And this structure of overcommitted attempts at achievement has lead me to a point

Where I glorify busy with everything I have

If my iCal isn’t booked wall to wall then I’m doing something wrong

Because if I’m busy than I’m needed

If I’m busy than the system can’t run without me

I am important

I am powerful

I am glorified

Achievement brings glory to me

Achievement is a physical reminder to everyone around me of how much better I am

And how much harder I worked

And how much more gifted God made me

So everyone is just living their lives attempting to out-do everyone around them

Competition is constant whether we realize it or not

And anyone who was doing something because they were passion about it is probably already lost in the rat race

If not they will be soon

We treat GPAs and promotions like the works that are going to earn us a place in heaven

But Jesus,

He wasn’t like that.

Jesus didn’t care about tasks, Jesus cared about people

He cared about them, not what they did

He cared about their hearts

And in twelve verses at the start of Matthew five Jesus turned every presupposition of success on its head

There is no blessing for the prosperous, successful, respected person

But there is a blessing for the meek

When He met the woman at the well He didn’t say

“so, uh, can you show me your resume?”

and He didn’t ask Lazarus about his GPA

and He didn’t want to see Nicodemus’s letter of recommendation

Jesus hung out with fishermen

“unschooled, ordinary men” (Acts 4:13)

They didn’t climb any ladder or fill out a single application

Jesus picked them because of who they were not what they did

Jesus was despised and rejected 

Jesus didn’t run on a time schedule

He never said,

“OK, y’all are saved and healed got to run to Galilee now”

Jesus dwelled with people

He wept with people

Jesus didn’t try to people please

He threw around tables and got kicked out of temples

But Jesus did care about people’s actions

Just not in the way we do

He didn’t demand his disciples prove themselves

He begged that they remained in Him

When they asked about the greatest commandment He told them

To love the Lord with everything and to love their neighbors like themselves

He cared that they were rooted in love

Not what gold star they got

Actions rooted in the character of salvation were the only actions that counted

The only ambition Jesus cared about was ambition grounded in the Gospel

And seeking after Him

Every action, moment and accomplishment

Getting to the top didn’t matter unless you were advancing the Kingdom every step of the way

So this is me sitting down and saying

I will not be defined by what I achieve

I will not make the respect of those around me my idol

I will not glorify busy

I will not feel the burden of proving myself

I will not treat what this world values like my only hope at salvation

And man, it’s going to be hard

But I am something so much more than the programs I’m in and the people I know

I am more than what I do

My identity is in Christ

So today I’m taking the first step into not letting it be in anything else.

Comparatively Speaking

"I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." (Psalm 139:14, ESV)

When I started trying to write this post, probably back in February, I was at the point where I was amazed by my anatomy classes and how God made the body and how it all works together.

And I still am, but the phrase "fearfully and wonderfully made" has taken on so many many different meanings to me since that time.

I have to be honest with you, for a little bit there, I was stuck in a rut. Same old classes, same old work, same old routine where I spend every moment possible with other people and doing anything to fill my free time because I hate sitting still. 
But in desiring to lose that stillness, I lost my desire to spend time with God everyday, which should always be a red flag.
And it was. The more often things like that happen, the less time it takes me to get to the point where I realize why it is that I'm stuck in a rut. 

The thing that I've been struggling with and that I'm being called to work on right now is comparing myself to other people and trying to be the best I can possibly be in everyone else's eyes. Which gets so tiring and boring and frustrating, because you can never win and you can never let your guard down.

So I've been reading verse after verse and listening to sermon after sermon about "being content in every situation" and "finding your identity in Christ." 
And none of them were actually helping me any.
I mean not in the way that it makes it any easier to apply it to my life. Because once you understand something, you're automatically changed forever. 
Right?

WRONG.

Today was different though. 
Today, I actually found a verse that made me understand my compulsive need to compare myself to other people. It made remembering that God made me different than everyone else for a reason much easier.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that you might receive adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)

We are under the law, but not by any choice you've ever made. Its written in your heart and it manifests itself in your mind (Hebrews 10:16). Whether you like it or not, this is the only place your sense of morality comes from.
We were made to be in a divine relationship with our Maker. However, the reality of the situation is that our relationship with God is broken because of our sin.

Enter insecurity.

We constantly compare ourselves to other people because we have an insecurity deep down that comes from the disconnect we have with God. 
We need to fill our lives with being the best at the things we love--even the things we don't love--because we have to fill the void somehow.

So to combat this, we have to constantly be striving to be in God's perfect will and to be spending boatloads of time with Jesus everyday. 
Not thinking about how "I'm supposed to be content, so I'm going to make myself be content."
When you're spending time in God's word like you should be, everything else in your life lines itself up as well. Worries fade away, peace takes the place of confusion and hurt, wounds are healed.

And comparing yourself to other people isn't as tempting because you know that God's plan for their life is completely different than yours but still just as beautiful.