In order to make something that feels truly “alive” at the deepest level it can help to imagine that you are “making a gift to God.” At each step of the making process you evaluate which option is the most authentic or “true” by evaluating how well it brings out the spirit of the thing you are making and whether or not this option would make a suitable gift to God.
An object that is not consciously made “as a gift to God” can be beautiful at first glance. But it might be flawed because it was made to show off the maker’s skill, or to draw attention to itself.
In other words, too much of the maker’s ego is involved with the thing being made. As a result the essence of the creation, or the “spirit” of the creation if you will, is diminished. The creation will feel less vital, less alive as a result.
This type of approach sounds very metaphysical. This is because our current materialistic worldview has no good way to express concepts such as the “life” or “essence” of the creation. These qualities emerge from a reality that cannot be reduced to the material properties of the created thing.
If we understand that what we are making is not simply matter, but is also spirit, then we start to realize that we had best not monkey around. We should take this work seriously, with deep humility, exactly as if we are making a gift to God.
The difficulty with this approach is that at times it can seem too religious, too rigorous, and very tedious.
When a thing is well made, it is an actual realization of spirit, a physical appearance and creation, realization of spirit in this world. As the window to that realm of I, we may see and feel profound things going on, we get a glimpse of something in the made detail.
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it is in my struggle to want this simple, unobstructed purity that I am helped, most of all, if I try to make each thing a gift to God.
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The trouble is, it is immensely hard work asking this question. It is a bore. It is troublesome. It is pedantic. It is too pious. I can’t be bothered with it. It is absurd to keep on asking myself this question. Besides, this question finds me out, and keeps on showing me–what I don’t want to know–that my natural inclinations are no good, that my work is too puffed up with pride, that my judgment is imperfect.
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order Book Three, a Vision of a Living World , pages 303ff
ALSO
Taking ego out of the equation turns an ordinary act of maintenance into an act of mindfulness – “Just fixin’” is the Mechanic’s Way of Buddha
