Molded
June 8, 2025
My artistic skills leave much to be desired. But I have always loved looking at art, and art history was one of my majors in college. Since then, I have relished visiting numerous museums whenever I travel. Perhaps because I lack any artistic skills in any medium, I appreciate those with talent to create art. The fact that I have no talent or skills in this area was pointed out to me by my fifth-grade art teacher. I do not recall the exact assignment, but I vividly remember painting a picture of a vase with flowers. The vase that I painted had no base at its bottom, but instead came to a V-shape. The art teacher was quick to point out that my creation was silly, as the vase was incapable of standing up without a base to hold it up and therefore would collapse. My eleven-year-old ego was somewhat bruised after the negative comment made by the teacher. Only decades later did I think of a retort. If Picasso could paint a woman with one eye and three breasts with flesh in several colors, why couldn’t I paint a vase that rests on a point?
What art has taught me is that each person sees creation differently, because God created the world, including humanity, with so many dimensions. Ever since that time, I have admired the beauty and diversity of what God creates and continues to create. I marvel at willow trees and their long, elegant, drooping branches, while my grandfather admired tall, majestic poplar trees. The ancient Greek proverb, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, instructs us that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. God, in His infinite wisdom, has given us different likes, dislikes, views, ideas, abilities, and talents. He has also given the ability to love, forgive, spread kindness and charity, and numerous other charismata, or spiritual gifts, in so many ways. Like snowflakes, no two ways of seeing the world, or helping others, are ever exactly alike.
God, in His wisdom, has also endowed us with different looks and preferences. Why is that I have often wondered? Why did God create me to look like this? Do many people ask themselves why they have blue eyes or brown hair, are Caucasian or Asian, are short or tall? Perhaps some do, but most learn to accept what we have been given in the looks department and carry on with their lives, realizing that other aspects of our humanity are much more important. For example, how we treat others. But why then do LGBTQ people often ask God why He created us this way? Who or what pushes us to constantly question, run away from, and defend who God created us to be?
In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, we read the following passage: “But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?”(Romans 9:20) Here, St. Paul is reminding us, almost scolding us, not to ask God why He made us as we are. And yet, unfortunately, many of God’s followers do exactly that, about themselves and about others. St. Paul reminds us that we have been molded and created as intended by the Creator.
God asks us to accept ourselves as He created us. To love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). In spite of the violence, cruelty, non-acceptance, and questioning that many LGBTQ people face on a daily basis, we can also find love and acceptance. Love and acceptance, even if it is only from our Creator. That is a tremendous gift.