Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
The Wind Sculptures of Lyman Whitaker at Long Grove Village
The Chicago Art Institute Members Magazine recently featured the wind sculpture of Lyman Whitaker. The address where his creations are on display was given as a gallery in Long Grove, Illinois. Since this is close to where my sister lives, and since I had missed her birthday due to travel overseas and she had missed mine, we agreed to set a morning aside just for catching up, lunch and a visit to see these sculptures.
I wasn’t prepared to stand breathless before their exquisite quality. Ranging in height from 5 to 27 feet, they were made from weathering copper and were so finely engineered that they moved at the slightest breath of the air. Since there was no wind the morning that Valerie and I visited, she asked if the sculptures (about 15 or 20) were powered by electricity. “Oh, no,” the saleswoman assured us. “There was that much air moving about the individual standing units.” We just couldn’t see it or feel it, but it whispered enough that all the fins and circles and paddles of the elegant structures gently rotated (or not) when touched by this world’s breath.
“In whom we move and live and have our being…” The wind sculptures certainly stand as a metaphor for that Scripture, which is one of many in the church’s continual attempt, as has been stated somewhere in the church fathers, “to find words appropriate to God.”
How lovely that this was a February day, in this amazing Chicago winter that has been climate beyond memory, where no crowds thronged the little stores of Long Grove Village, no vendors hawked food on the sidewalks; just a few curious shoppers, like ourselves, wandered in and out of what stores were not closed for the season. The sculptures softly, gently turned in air we could not see, but they gave witness, bore testimony to the life wind all about us.
From Paul’s sermon in Athens:
“And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ …” —Acts 17:26-28.
Go to the Whitaker Studio website for a moment of pure meditative magic. As you watch and listen, think about the God we cannot feel or hear or see.
I spy God!
————————————————————————————–
Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.
Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.
Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.
For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.
Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.