Working With Clay
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by Dwight Fraser
The following is a record of Dwight's experience while participating in a meditation exercise during the fall residency of Shalem's Personal Spiritual Deepening Program.
I took up the lump of clay and held it... felt its weight... its texture. It felt moist, soft, yet solid. Firm!
My first impulse was to just roll my hands so it would shape the clay into a ball. I resisted, wondering, why should I change the clay's shape? It seems that that is what goes on inside me. I resist being shaped.
Thankfully there was another nudge: "twirl your hands to make the clay into a ball." I lamented changing the clay's shape but slowly began to twirl my hands.
Amazingly what was a thick slab of clay began to become round. I had supposed that I would have had to muscle it into a ball. Instead, almost imperceptibly, it became the shape of an ... apple.
Wow! An apple! I realized after the shock that that is what I am... an apple of God's eye. I realized that God had not just been shaping the clay; God had also been shaping me, imperceptibly.
I began to think, "How was I going to get the apple a stem?" Before my thoughts went too far down that road, I got another nudge. "Make a vessel!" "No!" I retorted. "I am the apple of the eye! Why make a vessel? I want to stay the apple of the eye!" "Make a vessel!" I heard again.
Reluctantly and dejectedly I began to press my fingers down into the clay, sorrowful that I was no longer the apple of the eye. I then began to wonder what vessel I was going to be.
It became apparent after not too long that the shape of the apple did not change too much. It was just hollowed out and in the process expanded some more. Shame on me for thinking that being an apple was enough when I could be more. And shame on me for thinking that I knew better than God what I should be.
But what vessel was I? Looking closely I recognized it almost instantly. It was a distinct shape from my childhood. I grew up on a small farm with cocoa and coffee, and we had a mortar hewn out of wood, much bigger but, in this exact shape, used for threshing, grinding and refining both products.
Oh! God wanted me to be his mortar! God wanted me to be his vessel for threshing, grinding and refining. I agree! There is much chaff for the wind to drive away. There needs to be grinding to unlock the flavour. And there has to be refining to produce a smooth texture. Who wants trashy, flavourless, loamy cocoa or coffee?
So I did not need a stem, instead I needed a mortor stick (pestle made of wood). I got up obediently, found an appropriate piece of clay, and made it into a mortar stick. When I placed it in the mortar, it almost looked like a stem....
I chuckled to myself. The words "God's apple of the eye vessel for refinement!" formed on my lips as I continued to chuckle. Then I remembered this passage from the prophecy of Jeremiah:
But the vessel he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another vessel, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "Oh house of Israel, can I do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." -Jeremiah 18:4-6 NIV
I responded with the verse of the Hymn:
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still. -Adelaide A. Pollard, 1907
Dwight, part of the Personal Spiritual Deepening Program, Class of 2007, is a Baptist pastor from Jamaica.