Thursday, January 8, 2009

Like Clay...

I watched it, mesmerized by its evolving shape.

It started as a lump of nothingness: brown, dry, square and uninteresting. Yet the artist seemed to enjoy this process of evolving chaos. The artist plopped a lump of clay, which at the time looked like a cow patty, into the palm of my hand. I was instantaneously anxious. Anxious because she was expecting me to create something I could be proud of. I said, "I don't know how," she replied "It doesn't matter, just try". I said, "I don't know what to make," she replied "close your eyes, feel the clay in your hands, squeeze your fingers into it and then open your eyes. What do you see? When you see something, improve it".

The more this artist talked the more stupd I thought she was. But, "stupd is as stupid does", so I did it: I tried. I felt my fingers sink into the clay; it felt "dirty" but satisfyingly cool. I considered the way my hands had contorted, the way in which the clay worked itself in between my fingers. I stated to like the oozy feeling. I was ready to open my eyes. I opened them and I saw it. My creation. It was a sea otter! I said to the artist, "hey, look, it's a sea otter!" She replied, "Hmm, well, if you see it, that's good". OK, so maybe my sea otter sucked. I then spent the next hour improving my sea otter so that others could see what I saw in my minds eye.

I wanted others to see what I imagined for my creation.

A Thought: What if every person, every human life, was clay in hands of God? What seemed like humanoid- evolving-chaos, to Him was artistic process. What if God holds us in his hands, closes his eyes and imagines something beautiful and then fashions us in that image?

1 Corinthians 12: 7 says, "Now to each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." Verse 11 states, "All these are the work of the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just has he determines".

What is the image in which we are fashioned? The image of God Himself! This image is seen in the unique work of the Spirit in a person's life for the common good.

Like clay in the hands of God, we ask our Creator to mould us and fashion us in his Spirit.