Every now and again I come across something I wrote down in the past—a quote from someone else, or something I wrote myself—and it feels like a gift all over again, freshly given for the present moment. That’s how it was last week when one of my aunts messaged me to ask if I’d written something that she wanted to properly cite in her journal. Neither the title nor the first line sounded familiar, but when I searched my blog, there it was—a poem I wrote eight years ago, complete with memories of the experience that underlay the poem.

It was a gift to me all over again, and so I offer it again to you as well, a reminder in the midst of a messy world filled with pain and unknowing that God is somehow still at work, a Master Artist who turns even the world’s winds and waves to His purpose, shaping us into beautiful masterpieces.

The poem began soon after I discovered a secluded stretch of beach. As sunlight slowly slipped around the corner, herons watched, waiting for breakfast. Ducks paddled and preened. Leaves and rocks and bits of broken shell shone in the morning sun as though awakening to a kiss, awakening once more into the miracle of finding themselves loved just as they are.

I paused there to savour the beauty. Then, when I rounded the next corner, I stopped and stared. The sun hadn’t yet reached the spot, but there was a piece of God’s art lying large as though calling me to come and look, and to look until I saw not only the art but the heart of its Maker.

Lying on its side in the sand, its bulk stood taller than me. Judging by its girth, this tree-giant had for hundreds of years been a living thing. Judging by its multi-layered beauty, it had then been long tossed and tumbled, sharply carved and gently caressed, honed and hollowed and hallowed and polished by the hand of God wielding waves.

One night, perhaps during a fierce storm, or one morning at high tide, this giant had finally come to rest. Now it lay in a living gallery, freely offering its beauty to all who cared to pause and look. It comforted me, this reminder of the grand Artist who holds me, holds you, holds this whole world and all the forces of life and death within it, and can turn it all into art.

Driftwood

Struck down, it passes through the waters,

makes its bed in the depths.

Twisted,

tossed,

tangled

in the cords of its watery grave

it is hallowed

by the hovering Holy,

hollowed by the Hand

that holds

in the deep dark

summoning

from the struck-down-but-not-destroyed

a masterpiece.

Each wave winds

crevice curls

wind wrinkles into kairos—

a beneath-the-surface

moment of creation,

of transformation,

of slowly-increasing glory.

For further reflection: Genesis 1:1-2; Isaiah 43:1-3; Psalm 18:4-6, 16-19; 139:7-8, 11-16; 2 Cor 3:17-18, 4:7-9; Eph 2:9-10

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As usual, I’ll be stepping away from my desk in August to enjoy family and savor God’s creation in some different ways than I can the rest of the year. I hope you, too—at least those of you in the Northern Hemisphere—will enjoy these last weeks of summer, and I look forward to seeing you back here in September!