@Tony – Great point. We all need each other’s strengths. No one person can do everything himself.

@Arieljoy – Your story illustrates how God works through us. Beautiful!

@Farid – Thanks for commenting.

@Colin – You’re welcome!

@John – I don’t have Poema… I’ll have to check that one out.

Nice quote. Good, sound thinking.

As for Michael Card, I’m partial to his Poema cd myself. :-)

- John

Thank you for sharing that. Very true.

Many years ago I was friends with a Native American woman who was about to be adopted into a family from a Native American nation other than her own.

She asked me to make a leather tunic for her to wear at the adoption ceremony. I was to decorate the front of it with a Golden Eagle made from Porcupine Quills. So there I was, a little white girl with a “How to” book, bags of quills, a gazillion packages of Rit Dye, and a picture of a Golden Eagle which I copied onto a hide that would become the bodice of her ceremonial tunic.

Well, I had more fun quilling this Eagle onto that hide than I had ever had with any other project, and it turned out exceptionally well; it truly was a beautiful example of the medium.

And the entire time I worked on that piece, and it took quite awhile, I felt a presence guiding my hands in the execution of a totally unfamiliar task, helping me to make decisions about utilizing foreign technique from a foreign culture.

I believe the presence I felt guiding my hands was that of spirit, God, the creator, and ultimately the great unknowable. It was indeed the creator’s creation. I was simply blessed with an opportunity to embody the PRESENCE in my hands for a few weeks.

Since then, I have spent some time putting paint brush to paper and I can guarantee you that the ONLY time I like what I do is when I DON’T DO IT! When the painting is MINE, it looks self-conscious. And when it comes from the creator, when I get myself out of the way and allow the creator to work magic in my heart and through my hands, it is ALWAYS amazing.

Wishing you blessings and joy,

Arieljoy

And I don’t mean going to Home Depot for the parts. I mean build me a simple lamp…from scratch. You can’t do it. You need people. You need the input of their experience, and you need their skills you don’t possess yourself. Then you can add your part.

That being said, I agree with a quote I saw from Clint Eastwood. He said “I have a reverence for individuality.”
While we need people, we should never lose sight of the fact that we’re each wonderfully made with special gifts and talents…not merely “happy accidents”.

I really need to remember that my creativity and individuality is influenced or driven by the company I keep… and the comment about God being the only true creator certainly puts things in perspective for me.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention :-)