clay remembers

“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker— An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’ ? - Isaiah 45:9

But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. - Isaiah 64:8

I brought home my first bowl from this pottery session. As I've worked on it (and others) throwing, then baking, trimming, then glazing -- I 've been thinking a lot about the potter's clay referenced in Isaiah. Now I am sure I am not the first person to compare throwing pottery and these verses. But now I feel like I have a better understanding than I did before.

When I first heard these verses (probably at church camp) it sounded so easy. That we as humans are so malleable; changeable, like mud or dough. Now that I've had my hands in it -- I'm here to tell you that clay is hard to work with. It is not all icing and squishy play dough. It's tough. You have to shove it around like a stubborned animal to get it to mind you. You must center it or it will cause the entire piece to wobble. The more delicate your lip or edge, the easier it is to destroy it in a blink of an eye.

There's a saying around the pottery studio: "Clay has a memory." If you mess up, the clay will lean towards where you took it before, even if you start again. Clay remembers what it was.

I suspect that we are about as easy to work with for the creator. We are shoved, we are squeezed. We are pressed on all sides, and we are refreshed and honed. We are gently drawn out of our center into a elegant new creation that will eventually be rock hard. And we remember where we were before we were saved even as we are created into something new.

clay remembers