{"id":25397,"date":"2012-10-09T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?p=25397"},"modified":"2012-10-09T12:41:50","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T18:41:50","slug":"the-kiddy-pool-we-are-gods-handiworkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2012\/10\/the-kiddy-pool-we-are-gods-handiworkers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kiddy Pool: We Are… God’s Handiwork(ers)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Every week in\u00a0The Kiddy Pool<\/strong><\/a>, Erin Newcomb confronts one of many issues that parents must deal with related to popular culture.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I remember reading Martha Nussbaum\u2019s Sex and Social Justice<\/em><\/a> in graduate school; in it, she argues that we are all \u201cbody workers,\u201d that every human is embodied and therefore uses some physicality to perform our work. It\u2019s just that the product of some people\u2019s work is divorced from our bodies, so the work is considered more dignified. I\u2019ve been thinking about that concept a lot lately, because it feels like my body is falling apart. This is most evident in my hands, where I have a recurring ganglion cyst (that came back even after surgery removed it two years ago) in my left hand and carpal tunnel in both. There were days last week when my hands were visibly inflamed with tinges of bruising. And I know why they\u2019re flaring up right now, too: my main work involves carrying around my four-month-old \u2014 and sometimes her three-year old sister, too. My secondary work as a writer doesn\u2019t exactly help, yet somehow, no matter how much my hands ache, I can\u2019t give up my writing.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s my sewing pile, a bucket teeming with bits of felt, scraps of flannels, snippets of ribbons, and buttons of all shapes and sizes. If I stay away from them for too long, or spend too much time grading my students\u2019 papers, I start itching to make something. It\u2019s funny how often a \u201cproductive\u201d day in my world doesn\u2019t actually produce anything. Mary Choi touches on this topic in this month\u2019s Wired<\/em>; her article \u201cThe Second Shift\u201d asserts \u201cif you want to be a maker of things \u2014 or at minimum avoid a quietly desperate life in front of the television \u2014 you have a responsibility to head down to the workshop.\u201d Choi\u2019s essay argues that hobbies, as long as they don\u2019t take too much time away from families and jobs, actually enhance every aspect of our lives. It\u2019s like we were made to make things. So while disembodied work (if there is such a thing) might be more respected (and I think Nussbaum is right there overall), it can never on its own satisfy the creative itch that we humans feel as part of who we are.<\/p>\n

Embodied creative work took on yet another form for me as my elder daughter and I read Lois Ehlert\u2019s picture book Hands<\/em><\/a>. Shaped like a bright yellow work glove, the story follows the narrator as she learns all the things her parents do with their hands in the workshop, the garden, and the sewing room. Filled with pictures of hand tools, the tale ends with the narrator setting up her own station, so she too can work with her hands and develop as an artist. The book is beautiful, and the sentiment it expresses seems almost second nature to children, who are tactile and whose toys, from Playdough to finger paints to sand boxes, invite the work of little hands. Children love to build and make (and then sometimes destroy) simply for the sake of engaging their bodies in the textures of the world around them. We may grow up and enter the dignified world of adulthood that prizes disembodied work, but most of us still seem to find solace and satisfaction in working with our hands as casual artists, gardeners, and mechanics.<\/p>\n

I think that creative itch derives directly from our origins as creatures made in God\u2019s image. Indeed, Ephesians 2:10<\/a> declares \u201cFor we are God\u2019s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works\u201d (NIV). Those \u201cgood works\u201d involve cultivating spiritual gifts for building up the Body of Christ and serving others, but I wonder if they also refer to our impulse to make, just like our Maker. Creator is really the first manifestation of God\u2019s character that my toddler understands, because she too is an artist, inspired by all of creation, which Psalm 19<\/a> proclaims as God\u2019s own handiwork. I could go on, but my left hand is beginning to ache, and I need to save some reserve for cuddling and cradling my baby. Maybe I\u2019ll go pick her up and make something with my older daughter \u2014 something beautiful and delightfully messy .<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I think that creative itch derives directly from our origins as creatures made in God\u2019s image.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1225,"featured_media":25430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[312,1291],"class_list":["post-25397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asides","category-general-culture","tag-creativity","tag-the-kiddy-pool"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Kiddy Pool: We Are... 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