Spring 2006/Vol. 42, No. 1

Luci Shaw is a poet, essayist, teacher and writer in residence at Regent College. She has authored nearly thirty books of poetry and non-fiction prose and lectures widely in North America and abroad. Her most recent book is Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination & Spirit (Thomas Nelson). For further information, visit www.lucishaw.com.

Editor’s note: This article was originally presented as one of the lectures at the 2007 Regent College Traditions Conference.

The Thumbprint on the Clay (The Mark of the Maker)

Luci Shaw

So, what’s all this about a Thumbprint? Another title for this talk might be, “The Mark of the Maker,” which has a nice alliterative ring to it. But the thumbprint, like the fingerprint, is for me an even more singular clue to divine activity and human identity.1 I’m curious about the way each of us is imprinted by our Creator (as is the entire Creation), and in turn, how we as groups and individuals can make a mark on our world and its cultures.

If each human thumbprint is unique, God’s is even more so—the original thumbprint on the universe, seen in the whorls of celestial formations, the suns and planets in space, in the nebulae and closer to home, in the fractal patterns of branching trees and growing crystals, of wind-blown deserts and river systems, as seen from the air, and in the wild profusion of colour and texture and design displayed in plants and animals, in seasons and hemispheres, and in the creation of each unique human individual.

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