In the first and last analysis, we human beings are makers. From the beginning of time we have been tasked with the work of making. Making shelter. Making fire. Making food. Making art. Making other people. While animals also are makers…nests…hiding places…other animals…as humans we have a big job of being makers. I was reminded of this when I noticed the business card of a friend’s daughter who creates amazing statues and fanciful art inspired by her Australian heritage. Her business card did not read ‘artist’ or ‘painter’ or even ‘sculptor’. It boldly stated her name and then ‘Maker’. I have kept this card to not only remind me of her work but also of my own.
Last week my family and I meandered along a beach on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington state. This particular beach is the recipient of all manner of washed up logs, branches, even whole trees stripped to a clean, near-whiteness by the ocean’s push and pull. These gifts from the Sound litter the sand for as far as the eye can see looking like skeletons of large sea-faring mammals that have met a treacherous demise, washed to land by a violent wind.

And yet…because we are at-heart makers, these abandoned ‘bones’ had been gathered by beach walkers of all ages to create something more, something whimsical and magical. Several places along the beach held the visible frame of a shelter for perhaps a small child to hide from the sun’s rays or the too eager eyes of a parent. The wood leaned in triangles and rectangles and structures resembling a Lincoln Log playhouse. The creations, now with no other maker in sight, begged for attention and the addition of one more log here…another right there. And so I obliged, adding my own twist of creativity that said ‘I was here.’

But the piece de resistance was one creation that took its inspiration from the many ships that sailed the nearby waters. Log upon log had been piled until a two story pirate like ship had been made. Towels hung on one of the walls, perhaps left behind by the architects, used to dry off after a cooling dip in the frigid waters near by. Looking up, I saw a long piece of flat wood with the words “Tristan and Ryan’s House”. I laughed and wondered who these lads were and how long it took them to be the makers of this remarkable creation.

With the beautiful work of Tristan and Ryan still swimming in my brain,that evening I came back to hear the news of the shootings in Orlando. Once again, what seems impossible had happened. Lives lost. Hearts broken. Families crushed. Possibilities cut short. Hatred and misunderstanding, fear and phobias littered a place that had once only held the sounds of laughter and the beat of music and dancing feet. Like most people, I felt the despair of yet another such tragedy.

And now in the aftermath of such destruction, such pain, here we are. Again. What to do? How to feel? What does it all mean? How can we stop it? There are calls for prayer and moments of silence. There are shouts for control of our nation’s fascination…love…of guns. Once again sides will be taken and lines will be drawn in the sand, political rhetoric will roll off tongues and fall on mostly deaf ears. We will say the names of these young people as we did the children of Sandy Hook and in all the other times in the hopes that this time might be different. And we will mean it and yet it know it is inadequate.

But perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this will be the time when we remember that we are all born to be makers. Makers not of destruction but of shelters. Makers who take the raw materials of what gets washed up on our shores and who build something beautiful and filled with hope. Makers who stake a claim on a house we have built, a house built in understanding and kindness and goodness and the promise of a future. A house that welcomes all and refuses to allow hatred and fear to have the final say. We will put our name on this house and baptize ourselves in the cooling waters that flow outside its door. We will call this house, Love.

As a maker, this is my prayer.

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