December 14, 2013

The prophet Isaiah wrote:

He shall judge between nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up swords against nation, 

neither shall they learn war anymore.

Isaiah 2:4

Today’s box is filled with intricately cut paper.  Black paper, made to look like guns, rifles, standing on the left.  The box is meant to be ‘read’ left to right.  The guns are standing in a row.  Next, is another row of guns, almost identical, but beginning to be transformed.  There is a leaf emerging.  The next row, the guns change a little more, a branch, and more leaves.  The rows continue until, at least, it is a row of trees before us.

A couple of Sundays ago, Jeff referred to the passage that inspires this box as God’s invitation to Arts and Crafts.  We are invited to take something, and help transform it into something new.  In the box, guns change into trees.  In Isaiah, it is swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks.  It is instruments of violence, into tools for farming.  It is defending ourselves against the ‘other’, transformed into a means to help the ‘other’.

Maybe, when we live like that, helping on another, there is not really anyone who is ‘other’.  Maybe we are all in this together.  Maybe when one suffers, we all suffer.  Maybe when one is helped, we are all helped.

Maybe, just maybe, peace will truly come to all of us, together.

The advent candles of hope and peace burn on.