A Piece of Work

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Pause to take in all that others offer as art

I experience it in a well-crafted sentence, whether by poet or preacher, essayist or novelist, journalist or lyricist;

In the sublime beauty and timing of a well-written lyric heard in the voice of a gifted songwriter backed by a talented musician;

In the arc of a baseball well-struck, the slap-sound of a hard-struck  line-drive unexpectedly gloved by a an agile and angling short-stop, the science-defying break of a 12-6 curve ball that baffles and humiliates the best hitters in the world;

In the haunting tone poem of a Finnish composer or the mystifying elegance of a child prodigy writing lines of music that would bewilder the grizzled elders of his time;

In The graceful, lithe, and languid strides of a track athlete as she outruns the wind or defies gravity;

In the bold, blurry stroke of the impressionist capturing a fleeting moment on canvas or the inexplicable wave of muscle and cheek carved into marble by the hand of a sculptor;

In the landing of craft and vehicle on distant planets and orbs o or the artful glimpse of far-flung galaxies taken by cameras floating in the ether of space;

In the intricacy of the atom and the molecule and the quark, worlds whirling in the winds of our imagination, unseen and unknown but for the miracle of the microscope;

In the art of the stage or the camera, the craft of a story well-told by actors playing their part, film-makers shifting angle and light into shade and beauty, choreographers and cinematographers and fashion designers transforming what merely was into what the imagination wants;

In the kitchen-rich smell of the well-crafted menu, an orchestra of taste to be savored with friend and family;

In the kiss of the lover;

In the kind smile of the stranger;

In the loving reprove of the mentor;

In the tear of the grieved and the laugh of the cheered;

In the daily and ordinary extravagances of blessing and gift that come our way that, in pausing to take notice, we discover what Shakespeare meant when he wrote: “What a piece of work is man;:” or what the Psalmist meant when she wrote “What are we, mere humans, that you are mindful of us. And yet you have made us little less than a God.”

Like Whitman, I sing the body electric and celebrate all that it means to be a human created in the image and likeness of God.

May you pursue the creative passions endowed to you by your Creator, explore the gifts you were put here to offer a world craving your blessing, and pause to take in all that others offer as art on this, our journey Into the Mystic.