Still reflecting on Bill Mowry’s upcoming ministry to seniors in which he wants to help them be “flourishing, fruitful, and faithful,” I’m fascinated by this recent article in our local paper: Softness through strength: Retired-surgeon-turned-sculptor captures raw beauty of Christian suffering, by Debbie Kelley, February 18. 2024. Here’s how it starts:
For 36 years, the strong yet tender hands of ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr. Joel Ernster aided patients to hear better, breathe easier and rid their bodies of cancer. A year and a half ago, he retired and traded his scalpels and scopes for clay scrapers and smoother.
The transition from performing surgery on human bodies to sculpting three-dimensional busts felt natural, he said. “There are common traits,” he said. “Art is a very tactile thing that uses fingers and sensation and understanding the anatomic relationship.”
Known in his field as southern Colorado’s preeminent otolaryngology cancer surgeon, Ernster’s career also included serving as chief of medical staff for Penrose-St. Francis Health Services and medical director at Penrose Cancer Center. “This is a lot of work,” he thought in his 37th year and decided to step aside.
It’s not that Dr. Ernster slaved away for 37 years as a doctor when he really wanted to serve God with his art. He knew he was working with God all along:
The same feelings of being God’s assistant in the operating room envelop his body when making what’s become his forte: religious-themed art.
“Joel has shared with me that he has felt God’s presence working through his hands, especially when he was involved in a critical surgery. I believe that he has found a new outlet for those same gifted hands,” said Colorado Springs resident Randy Cloud, who owns one of Ernster’s pieces.
It’s clear that Joel considered his work as a surgeon as a ministry of helping people physically. Now he considers his art as helping people spiritually:
The thing that I want to portray is to show a dramatic pose and engage the onlooker and try to have them have an emotional response to the event that’s happening with the human body…I think Christian suffering creates a story that’s compelling and dramatic. – Dr. Joel Ernster, surgeon turned sculptor as reported by Debbie Kelley, Colorado Springs Gazette, February 18, 2024
Bravo to Dr. Joel! An example for us all.
Good people will prosper like palm trees, Grow tall like Lebanon cedars; transplanted to GOD’s courtyard, They’ll grow tall in the presence of God, lithe and green, virile still in old age. (Psalm 92.12 – 14, MSG)
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3.17, NIV)