Phil On ... 

Allegorical Sculpture

Here is a picture of a sculpture I made.
 I will now share with you how it came to be and how, after construction, a Christian Metaphor occurred to me. I love walking in the countryside. As I walk, I like to take notice of the things I see – trees, birds animals and the like. Sometimes I am minded to collect things with a view to making something from them when I get home. Back in 2019, I was fortunate enough to spend a week with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew at Pevensey Bay in Sussex. We had managed to book the same holiday bungalow where my sister and I spent many happy childhood holidays during the late 1960’s and 1970’s. The bungalow is right on the beach – when I say it’s a stone’s throw away from the sea, I am not exaggerating (well, at high tide anyway). I enjoy walking along the pebbled beach, hearing the scrunching noise that my feet make. I started to notice that some pebbles had holes through them – holes created by years of erosion as shingle, moved by the waves, repeatedly abraded one spot on the pebble. I collected these pebbles with a vague notion to generate a gravity-defining tower from them. I also bought an ornamental lighthouse to sit on the top.
When I returned home, I attempted to use thin fuse wire to connect the pebbles. Although the wire passed through the holes just fine, it was too flimsy to hold the pebbles in the structure I wanted. It was a year or so later when a friend (who was erecting a wire fence around his property), gave me a section of thicker gauge wire. This worked perfectly, resulting in the structure you see above.
Reflecting on what I had created, I subsequently made a connection with Christian life. The arrangement of pebbles, as already mentioned, seems to defy gravity. It looks to be an impossible structure. Maybe it represents a challenge in our work or church life that we initially can’t see ourselves able to fulfil. Only with the wire (equating to our faith in Jesus) can the impossible happen. The thin wire represented a weak faith whereas the thicker wire represents a stronger faith created through years of studying the bible and praying. Faith can lead us to achieve things that we thought impossible. The lighthouse on the top represents the light of God – there for all to see. Obviously, it’s easier for others to see and be attracted to the lighthouse if it is elevated on a strong foundation.
Proverbs Chapter 3, verses 5 and 6 connects nicely with this article: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths” …. or based on my sculpture maybe the last words should read ...  “He will make your paths delightfully crooked!"