Wine glasses

Recently I had a conversation with an elderly lady. She was standing at the Saturday flea market in Apeldoorn with her blanket full of things. I was looking for coloured glass to melt down into beautiful little ornaments, which I then fix into a little prayer nut.

This lady was selling old wine glasses. “From the sixties, brought back from southern Germany and the Tyrol, with my husband,” she said. A bowl of clear glass and a foot of transparent green glass. That green glass would make a lovely little sphere. “That’s nice, sir, these days people only want ready-made plastic products from China.” “What you do is skilful.” “But what are those little spheres for?” I explained what the prayer nut is and how I make my ornaments. She said: “I was brought up Catholic, but I have never heard of this.” I told her how the prayer nut came across my path when I was 27. She looked at me intently and, with a glance, drew my attention to her arms, where she pointed out her goosebumps. At that very moment the hairs on my arms stood on end too. Quite calmly, I told her that God has evidently bound Himself to the prayer nut.

This small object opens the doors of heaven. It brings understanding of the kingdom that Jesus always spoke about. It connects our prayers with our heart, our mind and the presence of the Holy Spirit. In those moments soul, spirit and body are touched. “This does a great deal for me,” she says. “Something happened in my life,” she explains… “Your story touches what happened. My husband died last year… What you tell me makes me feel whole.” Meanwhile I look for a little prayer nut in my rucksack and give it to her. “This one is for you, and you may decide for yourself what to write in it.” The accompanying text is about my search and the discovery I once made in the Rijksmuseum. She understands, and I go on my way again, but now with two old wine glasses that I will later smash.