...clay at it's essential level

Life on the Potter’s Wheel

And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We are all formed by you hand.

Isaiah 64:8

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Jeremiah 18:1-3

I just got back from Chicago where I finished my training as a spiritual director through North Park Seminary’s Center for Spiritual Direction. It’s a two full year program that has a week’s intensive for three summer sand then classes during the school years in between. It’s been an incredible experience and I’ve made friends who have impacted me significantly.

On the last day, my friend Julie offered our afternoon devotional. I didn’t know it but Julie has been learning how to make pottery for a number of years.  She told us that when someone opens a new package of clay to work on, it’s important that the potter kneads and presses the clay because the clay remembers the touch of the potter’s hand. It literally impacts the clay at an essential, cellular level.  She went on to describe the importance of the process of how the clay is molded and handled in the shaping of a bowl or plate because the smoothing and shaping requires a certain number of times when the potter must use their fingers to press into and move the clay and if they try to skip or shorten that time then the plate will develop an “S”- crack when it dries and if it’s fired in the kiln that way it won’t be useable.

Certainly, Julie’s description and images spoke to me about the essential nature of the touch and work of the potter’s hands on the clay of our lives but actually there was another truth about clay that she shared that’s really stuck with me.  When a piece of pottery dries in such a way that it reveals flaws that indicate that it won’t fire well, the potter breaks it apart so that it can be shaped again. When the potter does this, it is done by hand and the clay is broken into the smallest pieces possible because of the next step that needs to happen. The broken clay pieces are put into a bucket and water poured over it until it stands about an inch or two above the top level of the broken clay pieces.  Then it has to sit, wait and rest…FOR AT LEAST A WEEK.  This can’t be rushed.  If the clay doesn’t sit in the water and slowly soak in just exactly the amount that it needs it won’t be ready to respond to the molding and shaping that the potter wants to do with it.  One of the interesting things Julie shared was that this doesn’t mean that the clay goes back to where it was before it was touched by the potter at the very first.  The clay still has that essential cellular memory and when it’s been resting in the water it becomes as it was after the potter’s initial preparation and it’s again ready to be crafted beautifully into whatever the potter wants it to be. The smaller the pieces, the better it responds to the water and the essential step of resting and soaking the water that enters into the smallest of pieces and brings it to the place where it responds to the skilled and known hands of the potter.  I’d never heard this before I had no idea that this was such an essential step. 

All of us have times in our lives when we feel like we’ve been broken into little pieces.  It’s when we are that God’s Spirit enters in at our most essential level…that smallest, deepest place of who we are…our soul. The Lord is the one who refreshes and replenishes. In John 7 we hear about this very clearly,

“Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, ‘Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will be flowing from his heart.’ (When he said ‘living water’, he was speaking of the Spirit who would be given to everyone believing in him…)”

John7: 37b-39a

Isn’t that great!  This truth is so important to Jesus that he shouted it so that the crowds would hear. It’s that important to the Lord that we know that God alone is our source.

One of my favorite songs about this idea came out about 20 years or so in an arrangement of “Jesus Lover of My Soul” by Ken Medema.  There’s a wistful quality to it that has come to my mind as I imagine being a piece of clay that’s feeling pretty worked over and is serious need of rest in the Living Water. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share it with you.  It’s really the music I want to share with you so if you want to skip the visual images feel free.  I’ve just been closing my eyes and soaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuQOXRJ-xzc

There is always a place and time for us to be deeply touched by the One who is called the Potter.  Whether we’re actively on the wheel or resting in the Living Water it is all part of the essential, unique and very personal way God engages us, molds us, crafts us, delights in us.

Potter’s Wheel will gather again this Sunday at 5:00pm on the courtyard at Second Church at 55^th and Brookside.  We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOINUS!  If you need more information, please feel free to contact me.

God’s Peace,

Mary

Searching for....and FINDING...a portable chapel of prayer

Life on the Potter’s Wheel

There is a community of people who live in the very northeastern part of England where it is bordered by Scotland and the North Sea.  It’s called the Northumbria Community.  It’s not monastic in the idea of living all together, sharing the dwelling and a common purse, rather it’s about intention because the people of this community are scattered all over Great Britain and well beyond.  There are those who live this rugged part of England but it appears that in most cases there are those who never do.  They just continue to live ordinary daily lives with all the usual demands of work and family, school and home and all the little and big things that go along with it. 

I was reading the introduction to their book, “Celtic Daily Prayer”. In it Richard Foster tells of a visit to Northumbria and conversations with two of the actual residents who show him unique isolated places that have been and in one person’s case is still used as a solitary, out of the way spot where they have been able to connect with God.  After visiting these two places, Foster comments, “I am profoundly struck by the image of a prayer chapel right at the center of this place of retreat and renewal. How appropriate, how fitting, how right.  I am drawn to consider how at the very center of my home, my place of work, my very life, there could always be a portable chapel of prayer.”  This sentence really gave me pause because of how it reflects my own recent journey.

For the last number of weeks I’ve been visiting a wide variety of coffee locals – both busy and quiet, a couple of parks, and a few other places and the exploration continues.  In truth there is a part of me that’s looking for that “portable chapel of prayer”.  This week as I’d been thinking more about it and came upon Foster’s words I’ve been really considering that this portable chapel has far less to do with any actual location, although certainly there are places where God meets us in unique and wonderful ways, rather it’s so much more about accessing that place in my heart, my soul where I offer myself up most fully to engaging with God.  Sometimes it’s outside in a beautiful setting, the corner of the couch in my living room, a coffee house in Brookside or in my car driving across town.  So, while there are always wonderful aesthetic qualities to places or prayer tools or music but the real portable prayer chapel is quite simply that place in me, “the very center of my home, my place of work, my very life…” 

The journey of this discovery is something that the people of Northumbria share no matter where they are physically.  It’s something that we can share as well.  That’s the community; together or apart that is a unique sharing that this missional community of Potter’s Wheel can do “together” no matter our location through the week.

We'll be gathering for a time of refreshment and prayer at 5:00 Sunday evening at the court yard at Second Church at 55^th and Brookside.   Come join us!

God’s Peace,

Mary