By Jennifer Duncan-Taylor of Master Potter, Simple Clay Ministry
Jennifer Duncan-Taylor of Master Potter, Simple Clay Ministry
There it was, doing a wonky dance on my wheel. I slowed down the tall, narrow column of clay and wrapped my fingers completely around it and carefully squeezed the cylinder as I pulled my hands from the bottom up to the rim. (This is called “collaring” and it’s kind of like gently choking the living daylights out of something in the attempt to control its behavior). Still it just wobbled. Stopping the wheel revealed that it was too sadly lopsided to continue without some severe intervention. I pressed the rim, held my hands firm and steady hoping that my constant pressure would make the clay conform to my wishes.
After a couple of minutes, the delinquent lump began to feel more centered so I resumed lifting up the sides, but I could feel it getting away from me again. I cut an inch off the rim and smoothed it with a sponge and yet it continued to wobble like a little girl with her first hula-hoop.
Hopeless.
Completely hopeless.
It would never be the stately, slender, elegant vase that was planned. Had I worked it too quickly or failed to get it fully centered? Was there a bubble or a flaw in the clay body?
Sometimes it’s a combination of problems.
Sitting back on my stool, I watched it spin and teeter with a hypnotic rhythm. It was clear that the lower three inches were perfectly balanced and that something had gone terribly wrong as I pulled up the sides. Fixing it was going to hurt. Having invested so much time and energy into this pot I didn’t want to give up on my vision, but all other interventions didn’t work. The pot just simply wouldn’t respond. The only option was to remake this pot into something else or scrape it off the wheel and start over with a fresh lump of clay. I picked up the cutting tool and held it steady against the side of the slowly oscillating form. The sharp tip gouged deeper and deeper into the flesh of its body until it cut completely through and I whisked away the upper 8 inches of clay and threw the offensive section into the recycle bucket.
There, spinning slowly in perfectly balanced form was a small bowl, three inches tall, four inches wide. Fit for only a single scoop of ice cream, it was nothing like the vase I had pictured in my head. I flared the sides, rounded its shape it a little more and smoothed the rim broad and flat. It was plain, but functional. At least I hadn’t completely wasted my time and had successfully rescued something from that mess.
I loosened the bat from the wheel and set the pot on the shelf to reach leather hard for a day or so before trimming the foot rim. I threw several other vases that complied nicely but I kept looking back at that boring, undersized bowl. I really had great plans for that lump of clay and it was so sad that it just never measured up to my expectations. Having successfully thrown several other pieces that day without incident, the bowl weighed deeply on my heart. There, sitting peacefully on the shelf were a dozen tall, curvaceous vases and one homely little bowl.
Pitiful.
Pulling off my apron and cleaning up for the day, I caught a final glimpse of the lonely bowl. I pulled it off the shelf and frowned. Then, dipping my fingers in water to moisten them, I stroked the rim as if delicately petting a kitten’s nose. The rim became a ruffle. Holding it up to eye level and turning it around, I found myself grinning and chuckling out loud. It was the sweetest pot I had made all day!
There were forty-plus other pots in that kiln load, but the one I was most anxious to see was the bowl with the ruffled rim. When the kiln was cool enough to open, I lifted the lid and there on the top shelf was the object of my desire as if it was the only piece in the kiln.
Perfect. Flawless. Beautiful.
This twee bowl brought me great joy because the victory had been wrought through a great obsession to keep it from failure.
I’ve heard other Christian potters giving a “Potter and Clay” testimony and just at the point that they have a lovely pot turning on the wheel, they smash it with great drama claiming that this is what God does to us. Then they spin the mess of mud back up into a shapely piece with a moving story of how He rebuilds us into a thing of beauty.
At the risk of criticizing my fellow Christian potters (because I understand the point they are trying to make) this simply cannot be true! No potter would ever crush a well-formed pot simply because they have power over the clay, so why would our Heavenly Potter do this to one of His? So much time, effort and lovingkindness put into each piece only to playfully annihilate His work? That our Master Potter would build us up only to crush us for his omnipotent amusement? That He would purposefully make a sloppy muck of our lives only to spin us back up into a great masterpiece as a display of His ultimate power and control over us?
No. This not The Potter I know.
The Potter I know has hands that caress the clay, easy on and easy off so as not to disturb a wonderful work in progress. He delights in the completeness and maturity of every piece. His will is that each one becomes useful as well as beautiful and He obsesses over each one of us just as a potter muses over every lump of clay.
God never gives up on us. He does everything He can to rescue us. The Master Potter intervenes by pressing us down and holds His firm hands on us, giving us every opportunity to become center-seeking and at rest in His presence. Our disobedience may have taken us so far out of balance that He takes drastic measures to rescue us. He wraps His fingers around us and collars us in to refocus our ambitions. He may resort to deep, life-altering cuts that slice away all of the flaws that are keeping us from spiritual growth. In a dramatic apocalyptic sweep, He slices away the flawed parts of our lives to obliterate the wobble and restore us so that He may continue to develop us into a useful and beautiful vessel.
Jeremiah 18:1-5“The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”
Did you catch that? He remade it into another vessel that pleased him! He didn’t give up, smash it, toss it or throw it back in the pit. He remade it into a new vessel that brought him joy.
Philippians 1:6“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Quite simply, you cannot out-sin the love of God. He will never give up on you. Even if He has to press you down, collar you in and cut major hunks away, He will make every effort to save you so that you find rest, security, love and peace in your new-found obedience to Him.
His delight, His obsessive joy, is perfecting the good work He has begun.
You.
I keep very few of my own pieces. I don’t know why. I collect pieces of other potters but rarely keep my own work. So the lump in my throat came as an unexpected surprise as I folded bubble wrap around the lovely little ruffled bowl and snuggled it into the box to be shipped to the gift shop that sells my work. I itemized each piece of pottery on the inventory sheet but realized there was no category for this one. So I put it under “miscellaneous” and named it “Ruffled Candy Dish.”
The gift shop owner called me a few days later and said that the Ruffled Candy Dish was the first piece that sold out of that shipment and asked me if I had any more to send to her.
If she only knew....
For more information on Master Potter, Simple Clay Ministry presentations in the Pacific Northwest contact Jennifer at