Excerpt from John 6:26

"You ate your fill of the loaves. . ."

Reflection by Donna Schaper

The reason I love scissors is that they cut things out and up.  Scissors frame a geranium by taking off the parts that have already had their show.  They take a picture from a magazine and make it look all yours.  Scissors find newspaper clippings in an otherwise over-stimulated, heavy mess, which mess makes your back tired if you put the whole thing in your backpack and get on the subway.  Once scissors have had their way with the newspaper, you can carry the five articles you really want to read as though you and not over-stimulation were in charge. 

Scissors also address that major postmodern problem of over-packaging. I don’t mean just the almonds but our outfits.  Over-packaging is a menace, causing the outer to prohibit entry into the inner.  Presentation, on the other hand, is a matter of style, which is spiritually stunning.  Nothing is so important as the way we present ourselves, wrap ourselves, choose ourselves.  Like the backpack with its choices, we become light when self-styling.  Packaging is NOT style so much as it is a fortress.  Scissors break through the fortress and get to the stuff inside, which stuff is delicious, beautiful, useful, and stylish.

Scissors are likewise useful on the road.  I keep a pair in the car in case I see a field of wildflowers so abundant that I can take some for a preplaced jar in the car.  I would never take from a small bunch, only a large bunch.  Seeds matter.  The next season matters.  But without the scissors I couldn’t take the asters or the daisies with such ease.

I keep scissors close by.  I have eaten my fill and want satisfaction and flow, not fortress and weight.  Scissors help me.

Prayer

God of what is inside each of us, thank you for scissors and my ability to cut out what is too much on behalf of what is just right.  Amen.

About the Author Donna Schaper is the Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City. Her latest work is 20 Ways to Keep Sabbath, from The Pilgrim Press. Check out her work at www.judson.org.

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