Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
It’s getting to be the time of year that we look for and celebrate perfection. We look for the perfect wine to go with the perfect turkey and the perfect pumpkin pie. And then it’s on to the perfect gifts for our friends and loved ones. And, often, after exhaustive Internet or magazine research or consultation with aficionados, we find what passes for perfection. We are proud of ourselves and namedrop like crazy that funky little up-and-coming winery or the homegrown business that makes all its jewelry out of recycled plastic. We talk incessantly of the genius or expertise
or creativity we found.
or creativity we found.Or maybe we find ourselves talking incessantly of the cleverness of the writing on a TV show or movie we recently discovered, or of how the author of a particular blog post, book, or song so exactly captured our emotion. Genius, sheer genius, we proclaim.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Word of mouth and referrals and reviews build business. But we err when we focus too much on those whose work in which we delight (and our skill and ingenuity in finding them)… rather than in the One who endowed them with talent and skill. The author of the Book of Wisdom in Chapter 12 warns the Jewish community at Alexandria of the dangers of idolatry, even in its more innocuous forms. The examples he warns of include philosophers who focused on the elements of the world rather than the One who created it.
May we resolve not to let our admiration of the gifts of others get in the way of our adoration of the ultimate artisan.
