The image shown here captures a sculpture I recently completed entitled reaping the whirlwind.
The piece is made of wood and stands 8 foot six inches tall. It was placed and photographed amidst the wind swept rocks of the Redrock Conservation Area – located just west of Las Vegas, Nevada. This particular piece is a part of a body of work that explores objects described in biblical text. The form twists and turns, changing its appearance from every vantage point. Even after studying the piece thoroughly, it is extremely difficult to recall an accurate likeness of the sculpture in one’s mind. Like the wind our experience of this form is fleeting and eludes our full understanding – yet there it stands, complete and immutable.
“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Hosea 8:7
This haunting statement is laden with several divine principles – one being the principle of multiplication. The type of seeds one plants, tends and nurtures will determine what will be multiplied and harvested at some point in the future. The wind in this instance refers to something that is fleeting, corrupt or foolish. The whirlwind is divine judgement or the intense consequences that, we are reminded later in the text, will not last forever. In the midst of the whirlwind there is an exquisite plan to restore what was lost – the principle of restoration. Reaping the whirlwind is never pleasant or comfortable, however, in the end it forces us to grow and strengthen what remains.