I have been a potter, making plates, cups and bowls.  It is hard work centering a lump of clay on a spinning wheel but there is such joy when it is spinning smoothly, perfectly centered, ready to be opened and shaped into a vessel for use.  Two hands listening to the inside and the outside of the clay as you pull up the sides ever so gently and smoothly.

I think pottery is one of the reasons I love this quote from Irenaeus, an early Christian writer. May you be soft and open to God’s touch.

“It is not you who shapes God, it is God who shapes you.
If then you are the work of God, await the hand of the artist
Who does all things in due season.
Offer God your heart, soft and tractable,
And keep the form in which the artist has fashioned you.
Let your clay be moist,
Lest you grow hard and lose the imprint of God’s fingers.”