All hands

It’s inspiring to be in a room with this much talent.  There are seven of us, all skilled visualizers, settling in for a late night in a hotel conference room, translating client stories into illustrations.

Scribing is a lonely profession.  I’m constantly around people, but as the hired icon-slinger, moving from town to town as onlookers ask, “Who was that marker-stained man?”  It’s a rare pleasure to be working within some semblance of a community.

Maybe community is too strong a word.  Gathering?  Better still: cadre.  Tonight, we each do our own thing, mostly in a silence punctuated by the snap of marker caps.  But from time to time, one of us circulates to admire, and occasionally envy, the work of the others.

I enjoy seeing how seven distinctly different styles join forces for the purpose given us tonight.  One artist, an occasional cartoonist for the New Yorker, has a minimalist approach.  Another draws loosely, with speckles of color throughout, as if each rendering is a kind of party.  Yet another is illustrating in panels, graphic-novel style.  Some approaches work better than others.  But the storytellers, awaiting our art, will all be happy.

This starts me thinking about times when individuals contribute to a larger whole.  Reading in Exodus 25, I’m surprised to discover the source of the materials for the tabernacle and its implements:

 [1] The LORD said to Moses, [2] “Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me. [3] And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, [4] blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, goats' hair, [5] tanned rams' skins, goatskins, acacia wood, [6] oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, [7] onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. [8] And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. (ESV)

This shouldn’t be a revelation, though.  Did I really expect them to go mine the gold or hunt for acacia wood in the desert?  (Not to mention tracking down dugongs, another reading of ram in verse 5.)  But it’s fascinating to think consider that God had his venerated dwelling place fashioned from the personal treasures of his people.

I get a shot of my colleague just after he letters a new formula.  Collaboration is all the rage today.  An even trendier word is co-creating.  But it’s not a new formula.  It’s how God designed it from the start, giving Adam the chance to name animals freshly minted by the Creator.  God involves us in his work.

There’s always a catch, though.  Collaboration requires humility – something that seems in short supply in the public arena these days.  But again: it’s not new.  Paul, ever eager for his fledgling churches to experience true fellowship, frequently exhorts them to quiet that inner need to be noticed.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves… (Phil. 2:3)

This still gives plenty of room for each of us to bring one’s best.  And the opportunity to celebrate the work of others.  My friend, Drew, draws what is, without a doubt, the most beautiful, elegant, almost transcendent work of art I’ve seen in all the years I’ve done this repeating event.  And I tell him so.  And I tell, the next morning, to any of the participants who will listen. 

I deeply wish I could have drawn it.  But I’m thrilled I had a little piece of the effort that created something like that.

Maybe that’s how the ancient Hebrews felt about the tabernacle.

Lord, I thank you that you created us to be connected to each other.  And I’m amazed at the powerful emotions that run through a successful collaboration.  They are so clearly from you.  Knit us together as your people, Father, that Jesus’s prayer for our oneness may be answered once again.

Reader: Tell me about a time you’ve experienced a collaboration like this.