Handmade

The other night, I was preparing to make mashed potatoes for dinner when I realized that my potato peeler was missing. I was saddened. It had been a great little tool, faultlessly shearing off thin strips of skin while leaving the tuber below intact. I had owned it for over ten years and it still performed effortlessly. I must have inadvertently discarded it with the vegetable shavings the last time that I used it.

I searched online for a replacement and discovered that the company from which I purchased my beloved Swedish peeler had eliminated it from their product line. In lieu, the company now offers one made in a large Asian country (that shall remained unnamed) which is responsible for the lion's share of the world's mass production at great detriment to the health of it's citizens. I grimaced and continued my search. My sorrow soon dissolved when I found an instrument made by hand in a small, French, village. It has a beautiful wooden handle and was reasonably priced. I'd found my new peeler.

I share this not to be pretentious, but because I find that there is joy in using an instrument so lovingly handcrafted by a master artisan, rather than some gadget haphazardly stamped out by a machine which creates widgets and pollution in equal measure. The fingerprint of the maker stays with the object long after it has left the master's hands. It is apparent that such things are created thoughtfully, with love and purpose. Such things, I treat with reverence and enjoy using them all the more for being a beneficiary of such artistry.

So it is with us. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made" with divine purpose and precision. I am surrounded by incredible individuals in my life who, regardless of whether they acknowledge the Creator or not, bear His markings in the gifts and talents that they exhibit. In fact all of creation with its diverse complexity loudly sings in harmony of the Master Artisan from which it is derived and should be treated with reverence. For, despite our best efforts to mass produce the created things, we fall miserably short, making only ineffective widgets and deadly pollution, in equal measure.