Living Parables

This Celtic cross has a story behind it. I love “things Celtic” (music, art, dress) and I have a lot of Scotch-Irish in my genetic background. When I hear bagpipe music I feel like strapping on a sword, wearing a kilt and charging down some moor. Anyway, I wanted to create a Celtic cross like one can see in an Irish cemetery. I carefully constructed a clay Celtic cross that, once fired, would be solid and bold. After allowing it to dry, I was moving it and managed to hit the top of it on a shelf. It instantly shattered into many pieces. I had that sinking feeling in my stomach of time wasted and work lost. I decided to fire it anyway. When it came out of the kiln I used some ceramic cement to piece the fragments back together, and then decided to coat it with a green sand concoction. When it came out of the kiln after the second firing it had a persona that was unpredictable. It looked old, weathered, and like I just plucked it off someone’s grave. Serendipity. I could not have managed on my own to find that special look. This piece took on special meaning for me due to the “fragmentation-reconstruction-glorification” process it went through. The end result reminded me of the Ernest Hemingway quote, “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places”. The centrality of the cross in my life has been all about brokenness and healing. I long to be strong in the broken places