Through Stained Glass: Advent--produce

“We see with our eyes. We know with our hearts. Outside…Inside.”
Jim Henson

I have a dream.

I’m hesitant to share with so many people.

Some of you already know.

Without giving too much of it away, I want to produce a piece of art.

Produce—that makes it so, oh what is the word I’m looking for, manufactured and not very creative.

Produce though means something like “make from components or raw materials.”

Which makes me think of the creative process and the use of imagination.

Imagination. Creation.

Imagination is when we form mental images or experience them.

Creativity is then turning these mental images into reality.

The end result is a piece of art—a created experience.

We produce art when we imagine and create.

Recently we heard John the Baptist encourage God’s people to produce fruits of their lives that indicate transformation.

“Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives…”

or as the NRSV translates it

“Bear fruit worthy of repentance…”

God has gifted us with the ability to produce fruit that can change the world. Fruit like kindness and gentleness, compassion and generosity, gratitude and tenderness. 

Like any good piece of art, it takes time to create and produce. In fact John uses the image of an ax lying next to a tree to teach how sometimes we need to be pruned in order for fruit to be produced.

The pruning process can be painful but it is indispensable.

To produce the hopes and dreams of God takes time too but it is possible. That is what we are preparing for. God has gifted us with all we need to produce God’s reign here on earth. But it requires work. It requires a selfless approach to life together. It requires us to trim back the parts in our lives that may be preventing others to receive the nutrients needed to grow.

As I enter further into the project I’ve started, I’m realizing that sometimes I need to remove parts I thought were the best lines I’ve ever written. It is painful to cut back. It is frustrating to let go of something I thought for sure was stellar. But, for the sake of the larger piece, the piece of art I hope to produce, I had to let it go.

Are there ideas/thoughts/habits in your life you need to reexamine for the benefit of the larger community?

What are you producing?

Why aren’t you producing?

What stories or lies are you telling yourself that is preventing you from sharing with the world the gifts God has given you?

As we continue to prepare for the coming of the Christ child, let us not remain only in our imagination. Let us not concede to the fear of creating beauty, art, or love. Instead, let us produce with our lives the world God birthed into being…