As recent visitors to the Rectory have noticed, I have taken up model building.
As any modeller will testify, there is something satisfying about recreating worlds in miniature. I have spent many happy hours assembling models; each one a challenge to manual dexterity and, often, the interpretation of not-so-clear instructions.
I find building a model and researching the use and history of the original relaxing. The work exercises my fingers, my senses, my brain. It helps to keep me fit. Once successfully assembled, a model is given pride of place to be admired but the real joy comes in the act of construction. Then what? We admire a completed model because of what it represents; the work and skill that have gone into it perhaps, or the beauty of the finished article. However, there is only so much shelf space in a house and completed models sit accumulating dust, and shedding small parts. From time to time a clear out is needed. All the models so carefully assembled in my youth have long gone. The models I am making now will not last forever, either. For the moment, though, they are there to enjoy.
Now it is harvest season. Fields are stripped of crops; only stubble remains. Meanwhile the granaries are filling. Soon they too will empty again to fill our larders. Creation means change. Flat sheets of wood and plastic become three-dimensional models; seeds become ears of corn, corn becomes bread. Bread is there to eat and enjoy. Fresh bread is wonderful, left for too long It goes mouldy.
God is the ultimate creator and, made in the image of God, we too have the urge to create. But we also need to know when to let go; when to make room for something new. Whatever your creative skills, do take time to exercise them. Having created; enjoy, share and let go.
Rev Philip
20 Aug 2023
0 Comments