Lessons From Glassblowing

On our way south, we like to stop in West Virginia at Tamarack. It's a wonderful collection of crafts and crafters from West Virginia. There's also some great foodstuffs as well as a nice little deli syle restaurant where we get a great lunch.

We always take time to walk around the place which is pretty good sized. After four and a half hours on the road at that point it feels good to get some circulation going again in the legs. It's also always an interesting place to watch crafters and artisans at work. We've seen potters and woodworkers, quilters and painters. This trip the glassblowers were at work.

I had to stop and watch. They reminded me of the glassblowers I'd seen on a visit to Bermuda a few years back. They heat up the glob of molten glass in the blazing oven and then roll it in shards of broken colored glass. It goes back in the heat and then into another pile of broken glass several times.

Then the master artist breathes into the pole the soft glass is attached to and begins to build its shape with breaths and a little masterful shaping with some tools. Once in a while it has to go back in the fire in order to shape it some more but in the end, the bubble of glass is opened up to reveal a colorful work of art.

When I originally saw this in Bermuda, it made me think of the way God, our Master Artist, breathes life into us. Sometimes we go through trials (the fire) and often life seems to be in shards, broken and chipped, but God takes all of that and if we allow him to do his work, he creates beauty out of all the brokenness.