It is said that Italian artist Michelangelo saw his sculptures fully formed within the marble before he put even the tiniest chisel mark on the stone. He described his work as liberating the statue from the rock that surrounded it and held it bound. Nowhere is this more evident than in his series of sculptures called “Prisoners,” that depict partial human forms, evidently struggling to release themselves from the rocks in which they still reside.
Maybe that is how God sees us: beautiful, graceful works of art, trapped both internally and externally, unable to break free. Perhaps one of the gifts Christ gives to his people is to release us from the bondage of whatever holds us back from being our authentic selves. And maybe creative endeavors can help us do that. I wonder if our work as people made in the Creator’s image is to assist one another chip by chip, in emerging from whatever keeps us from being splendid beings we are meant to be.
This message is excerpted from “Made in the image of a creative God” by Susan Schneider in the January 2023 Café online magazine.
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