The Potter's Impassioned Clay

     In a piece entitled, “Impassioned Clay,” Ralph Helverson wrote, “We are clay, the dust of creation with the breath of life. ...The core of life is a tough residual element that is earthy and basic. Earth and air and fire and water—these conditions birthed us and sustain us.” He used the metaphor of “impassioned clay” to symbolize what it means to be human.

     His words recall those of the book of Genesis in which humankind was created out of clay, made in a divine image. To be made in the image of a creative force is to suggest that fundamental to our being is the ability and the desire to create.

Born Again (and again)

     The phenomenon of creation, whether of an individual bee, bird, or human being should take our breath away. Each happens in a community, one in a hive, one in a nest, and one in a family, however configured.

     Depending on how it is fed, the bee can become a worker that lives a few weeks or months, or a queen that lives three to four years. 

     Depending on the species, the bird will be shell bound for two to three weeks, then nest bound for two to three weeks, totally dependent for food. Finally, the moment arrives when the fledging is pushed out of the nest. The choice is all too simple: fall and be killed, or begin to fly and become reborn into sky.

Grow a Soul

     The Rev. A. Powell Davies wrote, “Life is just the chance to grow a soul.” Between nature and nurture, who and what we become is a lifelong process.  We are both the raw material and the artist. Every experience becomes part of the material with which we can work. Every person we meet is a possible partner in a mutual collaboration of formation. To be sure, we can stop the process by settling, by letting the clay of our being harden, but the wiser choice is to remain pliable. And the goal? To complete our life before it is ended by death. The people that we tend to admire are those who kept growing and changing throughout their life, first by addition, and then by subtraction as they shed layer upon layer in search of their essence. 

     Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash