Over the weekend in our neighborhood, winter made one last powerful blast. After a day dotted with snow flurries, our thermometers dipped to a very unwelcome 12 degrees overnight.
In the morning, though, it was worth it, because God showed me a cold-weather wonder in an unlikely place. My dog Jack never likes to be without a drink, so when he goes “out to play” on my deck, I leave a bowl of water near the door.
After our night in the deep-freeze, I knew his water would be frozen and need refreshing, which is when God amazed me. As the round ice slipped from the bowl into the kitchen sink, its bubbles caught the morning sun and flashed like so many diamonds. The only thing to do was stop and study it, acknowledging the extraordinary beauty God had put in this ordinary place.
Some would laugh at me for saying God was responsible for the artwork inside that ice. But freezing and thawing, along with a zillion other natural processes, were first established by him back at creation. And since the laws of nature are all subject to his control, he is, indeed, responsible for what I saw.
As I admired the circular hunk of ice, turning it around in the sun, I decided to investigate whether it’s easy or difficult to put bubbles into ice…. or into its visual equivalent, glass.
If glass-blowers want to insert bubbles or lines into their artwork to make it look like Jack’s water-bowl ice, they have to learn how to handle blobs of gooey, red-hot glass while carefully regulating its rate of cooling. Then they have to add new layers of glass, trapping bubbles between them, hoping they won’t pop. And throughout the process, they must be careful not to let the glass droop or drop. Only seasoned craftsmen can accomplish this.
I have a bubble-infused glass paper weight, and once in a while I study it, amazed by its beauty.
Yet staring into the ice from Jack’s water bowl flooded me with the same sense of wonder as looking at my paperweight. My admiration for the two artists, however, (a glassblower or God himself) is quite different.
A glassblower is probably not equally skilled with wood, metal, stone, oil paint, or any other medium. But God is a master-craftsman in all categories, from atoms to atmospheres.
He can make everything from glittering bubbles to glittering stars.
All of it causes me to appreciate his astonishing abilities, even if some of what he makes is either too tiny or too massive to understand. Just seeing what he can do in a dog’s water bowl is enough to convince me he is an Artisan like no other.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things…” (Revelation 4:11)