Maclin

All art is redemptive. I first knew this young man as an artist who came into my beginning art class only for me to show him what he already was, an artist.  He understood the immersive abiding of God in himself and all things and the desire this awakens in him to give back to Him who provides.  He moved on, married well, an artist herself, had children, one son named after me, and they and God live together on the earth, gleaning, harvesting, hunting, and putting by stores to live in relationship.  He is becoming a timber framer, a skill lineaged to him by his father and forefathers.   A great red oak fell on Fair Haven*, and he asked if he might take it and make two tables, one for my lover and me and one for him and his.  It is an homage.  So Friday, he drove across Tennessee, and arriving late in the afternoon, we found ourselves on the side of our mountain, in the waning sun over the river, me watching, him with mighty tools.  The youngster first knew the tree, walking up and down it, admiring it, studying it, seeing in it all its divine possibilities.  It was Him and him, and his father, and forefathers all there, and I, alone watching.  And then he harvested it, releasing its powerful tensions one knowing cut at a time.  From its stump to its crown, he began its process to two tables, and the crown he cut into firewood for us.  And, as it should be, finished just as sun set.  It was a work of art, a forefather’s apprenticed artisan, showing me again, the young man I first knew, being what he always was, an Artist.  Art is redemptive.      

    

 *https://aaronleebenson.blogspot.com/2024/09/well-done-thy-good-and-faithful-tree.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwY2xjawIEbaFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHZPStgdMqCxyTVLCpyvEwVP3WUw4KuP9d8tbICDx3XQ1_7PHBxrUUwVtkw_aem_j8X37Wl-g4u7GNI96Hb2lQ