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God is the potter, we are the clay

A Message from Ann Rosendale

A potter and her clay

By Ann Rosendale, pastoral intern

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. — Isaiah 64:8

I am trying my hand at a new adventure this summer! I’m taking a six-week ceramics course, more for fun than for anything. My pottery skills are unimpressive, and my clothes come out filthy with wet clay and glaze at the end of each class, but I love the opportunity to engage my mind and body in something so different from anything else that I do in my day.

You might not be surprised that I am learning a lot about myself and a lot about God through this newfound hobby. After all, a potter and her clay are clear biblical metaphors for God’s relationship with us. We are the clay, and God is the potter.
It’s amazing to me how expansive this metaphor becomes when one literally begins to sink their hands into clay in an attempt to create a pot. I am gaining so many new insights about my heavenly Potter as I throw cups and bowls on the wheel every Wednesday.

For example, you would not believe how much strength it takes to mold a piece of clay. Experienced artists make work on the wheel look effortless; but my muscles are sore when I come out of class! It takes all the strength a potter has to force her clay into perfect form; she uses her entire body to center, lift, and open the clay.

But then there’s a second part of the craft that calls for just the opposite of muscle. It is the shaping of the clay that requires only the most delicate touch. When the wet, mucky material is so fragile, the slightest movement of a potter’s fingers can drastically affect the outcome of her piece, for good or for ill. While the early stages of her project demanded a rough-and-tough treatment of the clay, now the artist has to be ever so careful to honor the vulnerability of her piece.

I am quickly discovering the challenge of balancing strength and gentleness in throwing pots. And I am learning to listen to my clay. This, I am finding, is the key to being a good potter. I, as the creator of the piece, can’t tell my creation how hard or soft the pressure on it should be. Only my little clay pot, under all that stress (or not enough), can tell me when it needs more or less of a push from me. If I try to force the clay into a form that it is not ready for, the result is disaster. But when I am attuned to the needs of my piece, something really cool almost always turns out. In this way my creation shapes me as much as I shape it.

If God is the ultimate Potter, and we the clay, it would seem that God works with God’s creation in a similar way. God recognizes the needs of God’s creation to be molded with more or less pressure on any given day. God is forceful with God’s creation when we need it, and gentle with the fragile “clay” when we need that too. Just as a potter is attuned to her clay, so too God listens to us, and is moved and shaped as much by us as we are by God.

Thanks be to God the Potter, who masterfully forms us, the clay!

Ann Rosendale,

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