A decade of blogging. Uffda.

Also, November 16th was this blog's 10 year anniversary! Wow. That seems cake-worthy. 266 posts filled with prayers and poetry and pain. It hasn't all been pretty. But hopefully it has brought (and brings) praise to the original blogger.

Valuing the maker

"Walk through a museum. Look around a city. Almost all the artifacts that we value as a society were made by or at the order of men. But behind every one is an invisible infrastructure of labor—primarily caregiving, in its various aspects—that is mostly performed by women…. The cultural primacy of making, especially in tech culture—that it is intrinsically superior to not-making, to repair, analysis, and especially caregiving—is informed by the gendered history of who made things, and in particular, who made things that were shared with the world, not merely for hearth and home.

Debbie Chachra, “Why I Am Not a Maker”  (Via Austin Kleon).

I haven't read the article, but I resonated with the quote. I just was struck by the concept of "invisible work" and the connection with prayer and spiritual work that I am ruminating on. But I think the relatively low-valued work of prayer highly relates to its invisibility- in a sense the "not-makingness" of sitting in a room (or standing, walking, kneeling) with a humble heart in conversation with my Maker. That doesn't feel "productive" in my "making=value" sense... and I think that's true for many Americans and it affects church culture and, frankly, the Kingdom of God, in incredible ways. 

Oh, to see and live for the invisible city, whose designer and [home]maker is GOD.

Large plans

If God be your partner, make your plans large. D.L. Moody