Not only are we surrounded by the beauty of creation, but we are blessed with folks gifted in celebrating that beauty through their painting, pottery and music.
Wow, what an artistic delight it is to live in Cochrane these days! Not only are we surrounded by the beauty of creation, but we are blessed with folks gifted in celebrating that beauty through their painting, pottery and music.
Why, just the other day, we were treated to the Cochrane Music Society’s awesome 25th Anniversary concert. And on several occasions, painters have shared their canvas interpretations of our Foothills and Eastern Slopes region. Nor dare we forget the potters’ gifts that prompted my April 25 column, which concluded with the prayer: “Mold me and make me after Thy will, While I am waiting, yielded and still.”
“After Thy will”? With that in mind, I’ve been paying frequent visits recently to Fourth Word Studio. Let me tell you a little about that.
Just this past weekend, for instance, we witnessed one of the finest Northern Lights displays in years, captured brilliantly in a photo by Cochranite Keith Schneberger (attached). That display of the Aurora Borealis reminded me of the opening to one of my favourite Psalms: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).
Ah, but on this theme of the Creator’s handiwork, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to a very special piece that dates back to the beginning of creation: the Creator’s selfie in fashioning human beings in His own image!
Tragically, that work of art was vandalized early on. Fourth Word Studio to the rescue! The Creator set about restoring that image by His Holy Spirit among us. And the essential nature of that image? Nothing less than love. For, “God is love,” the Scriptures declare, and “as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4).
All of which brings me around to why I refer to this experience as the “Fourth Word Studio”: “Our Father who ART in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven….”
© 2024 Warren Harbeck
