A Verse A Day (Day 15)

“The firmament proclaims God’s handiwork,” according to the 19^th psalm. Here’s a shout out to the translators for choosing the word “handiwork.’ It’s a perfect term. Whether it refers to making paper cranes, intricate drawings, carving, doodling, swaddling, stitching, stirring, painting, braiding, tattooing, or designing – handiwork is what we do when we’re doing. 

 

So, if I imagine the firmament – the heavens, outer space, nebula, dark holes, galaxies, suns, stars, multiverses, and all that is therein – as God’s handiwork, what do I see? What if God is like Banksy – the incredible artist whose works take glimpses of the inner city and re-imagine them in ways that are truly revelatory? What if God’s is like Alice Walker, who uses ordinary language to convey extraordinary truth? What if God is like Leonardo, ambidextrous, inventive, and the master of form? And what if God is like that tinkerer who took the dissatisfaction with previous designs and modified them to become a zipper? Seeing God in these different ways might enable me to see the firmament and all creation in a different way. 

 

For me, a profound metaphor for God’s handiwork might be the Tibetan Buddhists that create the sand mandalas. It is intricate work. There is a melodic, constant humming that accompanies the concentrated silence. The artists are intensely focused on every grain of sand and how they create patterns, color, and meaning. It takes a long time of sustained effort. Then, when it is done and its beauty is fulfilled, they dismantle it, to reflect the transitory nature of life. The dismantling itself is a ritually deliberate process, before the sand is returned to the river and reabsorbed into the elements. 

 

What if that’s the kind of artist God is? What if God’s handiwork is to create a universe, which lasts for eons to us and mere billions of years to God, only to reabsorb it into the dark matter before another universe bursts into being? The heavens are telling the glory of God and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork – do I even have the capacity to hear and see?