African Carvings
Shaped by a divine hand?

My son Ryan and I stood and watched with amazement as the young Kisii man began to work a piece of soap stone with what seemed to be just some rudimentary tools. In fact we were so fascinated we sat on the ground as the African sun began to take away the slight morning chill of the Kenyan Highlands in the tea growing area of Kericho.

We had come through here a few days earlier on our way from Nairobi and asked if he could make us a carving of an African man. Five days later we watched as the final touches were being applied to what had been transformed from a stone to a beautiful piece of art. We had seen it as a mere rock, but this craftsman had seen something more, he saw a face, a body, arms, and legs. As he envisioned it with his heart, his hands shaped it and called it into being.

No longer were there rough edges, no longer dull color; a transformation had taken place while we were gone. The skilled hands of a craftsman had brought it almost to life. My thoughts drifted as they often do at such times to my own life, to my own shaping.

For many years, in my youth and early adulthood, I had fought the divine hands that wanted to shape my life. I had approached life as if I was on an Amtrak train looking for the destination, the station where I would be met with a party, banners, a marching bands. I kept looking for the destination; the place where I would arrive instantly shaped, never enjoying the journey or the process, missing the beauty of the scenery and wonders all around me.

Well, it never happened. I never arrived, there never were banners, nor any bands. In fact a few years ago I realized how futile it all seemed. I had walked away from a position that meant as having arrived amongst my peers. I even gave seminars as to how to do the same. On the surface I seemed together, whole. I had the right words, the right designer labels. I did not drive the right cars, but even then it was a sense of status to sitting in a MG and driving with the top down or running around in a nice jeep like vehicle with chrome wheels.

I looked shaped and formed on the outside, but had not allowed an inner shaping to take place in me. I looked over to Ryan and thought how I had missed out enjoying the simple things in life with him. I thought of a marriage that was simply a living arrangement between two people. I thought of the moments that I could have sat and simply listened to a person and enjoyed a cup of coffee. I thought of the pleasant experiences I had missed because I had been driven to succeed, to arrive at the destination of success as defined by the American model not having the time to simply be and enjoy.

As I sat there watching the carver, I smiled and realized that things had changed. That my life was being shaped from the inside out. Divinely ordered and laid out before me. It was almost like following someone's footsteps in the winter snow. The path seemed so clear now, no longer a mad train ride, but I actually enjoyed the journey. Wherever I went there I was, besides I was enjoying it. Relationships blossomed, a job became an inner calling, and I felt at home with myself. Even my son Ryan mentioned to me that I seemed to be at peace with where I was and who I was becoming.

I was learning the principles that others had written about such as Francis of Assisi, but now they were not simple letters printed on the pages of a book. There was a life plan engraved as a living letter on the pages of my heart. No longer head knowledge, but the shaping had translated into heart knowledge. No longer a struggle, an effort of the arm of the flesh, but an inner empowerment brought about by a divine process.

As we drove away from the carver, Ryan held the soap stone carvings in his hand and he looked over to me and said, "How did it happen that you changed?"

Like all inner workings it began with the sharp knife of loss and pain, it took a process beyond self-help books, beyond the tapes of success gurus, it took going with the inner flow that the pain had called me too. I meant an inner sanding to smooth the rough, calloused  edges of the heart, developing sensitivity, grace, compassion. Things, one cannot buy packaged in a local store. It also took time, after all it had taken me years to get here and it would take a few in order to leave this place.

I still have goals in life; a lot of them in fact, divinely inspired, since according to the ancient Hebrews, "Old men dream dreams." I certainly am doing my share of that, but I also have come to realize that the process of getting to the goals is as important if not more so, than the goals themselves.

A man who knew all about that process of an inner shaping wrote centuries ago the following words: "forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead." (Apostle Paul)

Observing an African man shape a stone into a figure, showed me what had taken place in my own heart and soul for the past few years. Seeing him apply his tools, the sandpaper, the water, the polishing cloths to turn this stone into a finished work took time, patience, vision. Not so different from my own life, except I still need a lot more sanding and polishing...jon