Exodus 31: Novelty Is Revealing The Temporarily Hidden

But there's no such thing as the unknown-- only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. - James T. Kirk, The Corbomite Maneuver

For my company, I regularly put on a half-day workshop on the topics of patents because of my experience. One of the key requirements for an invention is that it must be novel. It must not be obvious. Someone from my field (a "man of the art") must look at the existing materials or components and look at the resulting invention and agree that it is new.

Now, as an apprentice of Jesus, this seems a bit ironic because I am sure that God is not surprised by what I've invented. At no point did God look at my finished work and scratch his head and say, "Gee, I wish I'd thought of that." No, God is the engineer and he invites me to delight in discovering what he already knows. I am following after Him.

There are two aspects the creative work product where we are invited to enjoy beauty. I call these the craft and the art. These may not be the right technical terms, but I use them because they are broad enough to include many fields of endeavor which are not traditionally thought of in terms of beauty.

The first is craft. That is, there is a beauty that is found in a work crafted or put together. The brush stroke or well-honed line of prose or the arched span of a bridge or portal. Or even an elegant line of code, a well-arranged interior or beautifully integrated garden. One of my favorite books is Beautiful Code. Software may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is a definite appreciation-programmer to programmer-for the way lines of code come together to implement an algorithm with no more lines and no fewer lines than necessary.

The second is art. Art is something that creates an environment in which others can thrive. Good paintings or photographs draw you in and view the world from a new, enriching perspective. Good books or theater or movies lead you to truth through the drama of the characters. Good software lets you interact with data seamlessly.

Let me give you an example from the Bible.

See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts - Exodus 31:2-5

God picked out Bezalel because he was an excellent craftsman. He was recognized as skilled and artistic. Other craftsmen saw what he did and could recognize the beauty of the designs in metal, precious stones and wood. This is craft.

Then the Bible continues:

Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant law with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent...and also the woven garments...and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place. - Exodus 31:6b-11a.

Notice the environment that their craft was creating: an environment for worship-in the architecture, in accessories, in the clothing, and even in the smell. This is the art. It can also be found in a palace (1 Kings 7), in words of wisdom (Proverbs 1; Psalm 119), in the human body (Psalm 139) and the stars (Psalm 19), of which is put into place as an environment for thriving.

I still try to be novel and create new things--at least new to me. Often I ask God for help in the craft and art of computer programming, because I know he enjoys my delight in what I find after him, in both the art and the craft.

Musings on Culture Making

I have been reading through the book Culture Making by Andy Crouch, which was first recommended to me by my friend Josh Gove from his inexhaustible list of textbooks he's reading for Bible college. It caught my attention because I have been prompted to think about the role of my profession and its relationship with my on-going purposeful faith walk.

This is not new. My earliest musings focused on people and how my interactions with them were important in the kingdom of God. When I worked on-site at Intel in Folsom, it was the first time I'd ever worked in a large company environment and the sheer number of individuals that I was involved with was somewhat overwhelming. God showed me how each of the many and varied people I dealt with was important--probably more important than any project I was working on. It was a learning season.

But then there was the work itself. I once jokingly described my work as getting paid to solve elaborate cross-word puzzles. Intricate, absorbing but ultimately just a relatively small number of ones and zeroes plugged into a chip. Not related to people. There were no helpful books like Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor to walk me through linking the creative and productive aspects of labor with God's divine charter for me. I sort of stumbled into it.

How to create? That is a new question I am ruminating on in my spare cycles. It is not just something unique to the Christian sub-culture in America, which is almost universally defined by (as Crouch puts it) condemning, critiquing, copying or consuming that which is produced by others. In fact, in many fields, creativity is less about pursuing truth and more about rebelling against the status quo. The need for significance often drives us to seek a noticeable separation from what is already out there. That separation from what is seems more important to us than closing the gap with what ought.

Crouch talks about these two positive roles as the artist and the gardener. The search for the undiscovered truth and the cultivation of the discovered. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it and apply it to the mundane chores of writing code and editing specifications. I'll let you know what I find out.