Good, Temporarily Soft Hands

I am closing out my 24 Art Retreat, sitting in the lodge kitchen reading the Most Sacred Text, drinking coffee, being with my God and being shaped to His world.  There are perhaps 10 or so freshmen here, asleep now, awake skittish, awkward trying to navigate their newfound freedom.  There are fewer seniors, looking as all of us do, down the trail at the bend wondering what lies beyond?  They will all wake up in the forest beside a lake, the earth will move toward our own star and night will become day and time and space will be available for all of us to make life—and what will we make.  If Art Retreat, these 24 years of meeting in the woods, does anything for me, it reminds me we are in good hands, young and soft handed, not yet callused over by the studio, but eager to place themselves into the ownership of Union’s Art Department, and to a child, I believe, seeking to be with God as He shapes it.