Extrusion

Most of us have experience with extrusion thanks to Play-Doh. If your parents sprung for the deluxe kit your supply of the stuff came with a little plastic plunger device. You stuffed the chamber full of your favorite color of Play-Doh, pushed the plunger down, and out squirted a line of Doh with the cross section of a star or an I-beam or a dowel. The shape of the extrusion is defined by the shape of the hole in the “die” through which the raw material is squeezed. That little machine probably launched the careers of many a factory process engineer. Many useful things are made in a similar way out of food, plastic, and metal. Snack food and pasta can be made into interesting shapes. Plastic and copper pipe are made this way as is aluminum framework for storm doors and screen rooms, sailboat masts, and all kinds of bracketry. Countless parts and pieces that add structural strength and convenience and sometimes even beauty to our lives are made possible by extrusion.

I was thinking about brokenness. I've come to the place of belief that it seems everyone who follows after God for any length of time eventually comes to: only broken vessels can really be used. I think it has to do with the fact that God created humans with the capability of moral choice that we must become broken to be of any use. Of course this is counterintuitive, but completely fitting with God's high value of humility and abhorrence with pride that is the huge theme throughout all of the Bible. Broken hearts, broken souls, and broken lives have cracks and fissures and holes. It is through these holes that the raw material of love is squeezed into useful forms. It's interesting that in industry the hole is in a “die.” Like that particular part of the apparatus must die to itself. It's own structural integrity must be compromised by the hole in the middle of it in order for the transformed raw material to flow through it.