I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. Revelation 3:15-26 (NIV)
Before our time at Fire and Light Studios came to an end, Julie and I had one more lesson to learn. We had already learned a lot. In fact, we made a list of 50 things that John taught us. Everything from remembering to keeping the glass flat when we cut it to using chopstick to keep Sharpie maker from washing off glass in the saw. But, all of that paled in comparison to learning to make vitrograph. Once or twice a month after the shop closes. We were lucky to be in town for that process, so he invited us to stay and help. Mid afternoon, John heats up a kiln specially placed up into the rafters. In the bottom of the kiln, there is a hole that John drilled and inside the kiln, he places a flower pot filled with scrap glass. After several hours, the kiln reaches the temperature of 2,000 degrees. At that point, the molten glass begins pouring from the hole in the bottom of the kiln. The task is to catch the liquid glass in a stainless steel bowl or tray and by shaking, twisting and rotating the Bessel, shape it into weaves, circles and twists before it cools. The finished product can be used for embellishments in projects. You can also take a steel pipe with a hole drilled in one end, loop the stream of glass over the end of the pipe and then, make a spiral of glass. John and one of his friends took the lead in working with this molten glass, but it was not long before Julie was standing underneath that colorful waterfall pipe and bowl in hand. I preferred to stand back and document the process because I was afraid of getting hurt. Finally, they conned me into coming closer, thrust a bowl in my hand and stood back leaving me no choice but to interrupt the stream before it hit the floor. I was nervous and shrieked a couple of times as I was certain that the glass was going to fall on me. But, it didn’t and soon, I was making “bird nests” and spirals along with the rest of them. Most nights, we worked at the studio until 7:30 or so, but the night we made vitrograph, we worked until after 11:00, loading the flower pot with one color after another until we had piles of spaghetti shaped glass in all shapes and styles. We were exhausted and hungry by the time we returned to the cabin, but the image of that molten stream of glass kept me awake for a long time. Cool glass is brittle and easy to break, but that piping hot glass could be manipulated so easily. I was reminded how God says that when it comes to our love for Him, we are not to be cold, but neither are we to be lukewarm. We are to be on fire and passionate. How about you? What’s your temperatur
Get out. I have to go back and read this again.