✝️ 
💛 
☪️ 💛 
🕉 💛 
☸️ 💛 
✡️ 💛 
☯️ Hand-building a bowl:
Function and form from clay made.
Fire and fire again.
✝️ 💛 ☪️ 💛 🕉 💛 ☸️ 💛 ✡️ 💛 ☯️
The ongoing pottery class I take is between semesters, so I find myself covering the dining room table in a plastic tablecloth and ‘going to’ here at home. Of late I it seems; bowl making is the dujour choice in building. Starting with a standard ‘bowl’ shape, the real fun comes when it is personalized. With little or no plan, I just begin to throw on clay. Though I do have a style of sorts, the ultimate outcome is as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else.
When the Creator of worlds and universes made each one of us, were we also a surprise? Did the Creator give basic form and the breathe of life and then stand back in joy and wonder as ‘the piece’ which is each one of us added on a gad-zillion and one variations creating ever more intricate designs?
When I woke this morning, I went back to the table and looked at each of the pieces created yesterday. Picking up each piece and feeling the still damp and cool clay under my fingers, I examined each piece from all sides. Then there was a bit of ‘ohhing’ and ‘ahhing’ in happy surprise. Do I feel the Creator tenderly touching me this morning, turning me about and looking into every nook and cranny? Do I hear the Creator of worlds and universes whispering a deep and happy love for me and saying ‘Ohhh – ahhh – Good effort little one. Good effort’
Someday this bowl will be broken, after it has served its purpose. Some bowls break and crack as they dry. Some may break in the first or second fire. Some may last many years and serve purpose for a 100 or more years.
When I woke this morning, I went back to the table and looked at each of the pieces created yesterday. Picking up each piece and feeling the still damp and cool clay under my fingers, I examined each piece from all sides. Then there was a bit of ‘ohhing’ and ‘ahhing’ in happy surprise. Do I feel the Creator tenderly touching me this morning, turning me about and looking into every nook and cranny? Do I hear the Creator of worlds and universes whispering a deep and happy love for me and saying ‘Ohhh – ahhh – Good effort little one. Good effort’
Someday this bowl will be broken, after it has served its purpose. Some bowls break and crack as they dry. Some may break in the first or second fire. Some may last many years and serve purpose for a 100 or more years.
Whenever it comes time for the bowl to be broken – when its purpose has been served – it is my prayer to go into the fire yet again with ‘thank you’. I will not be afraid of high places nor the terror of the road I am given to take. Then a bit more clearly than the whispers of days past, I will hear the clear bell call of my Divine Beloved welcoming me home. Completely forgetting the breaking of the old bowl, I will dance in the scintillating light amidst the thunderous waves of my Beloved’s embrace.
✝️ 💛 ☪️ 💛 🕉 💛 ☸️ 💛 ✡️ 💛 ☯️
Ecclesiastes 12:5-7 KJV
“Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”
“Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”
✝️ 💛 ☪️ 💛 🕉 💛 ☸️ 💛 ✡️ 💛 ☯️
✝️ 💛 ☪️ 💛 🕉 💛 ☸️ 💛 ✡️ 💛 ☯️
