Terminally Shy
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Terminally Shy" by Scott Dalgarno
"Counting the Cost" by Argile Smith
"Lopsided Clay" by Timothy F. Merrill
What's Up This Week
A true companion is a touchstone that can make all the difference in coping with the ever-shifting sands of modern life -- but for many, locating that steady rock is a lifelong pursuit. In our featured piece in this edition of StoryShare, Scott Dalgarno tells the touching story of a man who took his time to find that special someone... and of his mother's curious reaction to the somewhat unconventional circumstances in which he found her. Then Argile Smith compares the beaming delight of a young girl who has gotten a treasured item to the happiness that is ours when we are willing to bear the cost of discipleship. And Timothy Merrill reminds us that when working with clay, being centered is vital -- and if we don't let God center us, then our lives will certainly be misshapen pots.
* * * * * * * * *
Terminally Shy
Scott Dalgarno
Philemon 1-21
The irony of the thing, of course, was how much Ben's mother always hoped he'd find a nice girl. Right up to the day he turned 50 she continued to tell him about "that nice Anderson girl who works at the bank."
"She's hardly a girl, Mother," he'd say. "She's worked at the downtown branch since I was in college." Ben's mother just didn't know what to make of her son. She'd tell her bridge-playing friends he was just "terminally shy." It took a real terminal diagnosis for things to really break for him, romantically speaking.
Well, it wasn't the cancer that did it. He'd met Suzanne a couple of months before the results from the MRI came back. She was new in Providence and began attending the Quaker meeting as a way of getting to know some people. Funny, a woman choosing a group that sometimes sits in a room for an entire hour saying nothing at all as a vehicle for finding community. If Ben was terminally shy, Suzanne's timidity was awaiting a serious prognosis.
Up until she met Ben, Suzanne told friends she was a cat person. That's all she'd say when a friend would ask if she wanted to meet a certain single friend or cousin. Suzanne had no problems with stray kittens (she often had two or three around her apartment), but she said she had no interest in making a project of someone's alcoholic brother.
Ben never was that specific about relationships. He'd just say in a general way, "Women are like elephants to me. I like to look at them, but I'd never want to own one." His childhood friends thought him funny -- funny ha-ha... and just plain, you know, funny. They'd long given up trying to interest him in a blind date.
What was truly funny, looking back, was that they met not within the walls of the church they both attended, but in a pew in civil court. Alice, a mutual Quaker friend, was divorcing her husband of ten years, and she had enlisted both Suzanne and Ben to testify that she was a good mother and not the wicked witch her soon-to-be ex was trying to paint her as. Blessedly, neither was asked to take the stand, but the proceedings lasted an entire day and the two found themselves sharing a tuna sandwich alone in the funky cafeteria the county had been running for a hundred years. Ben had forgotten his wallet and Suzanne insisted the sandwich was much too big for her to eat alone.
There they sat in silence, elbows on formica, until Ben said it sounded an awful lot like church. Suzanne nearly choked, and following that respectful silence it seemed neither shut up for a moment until the tumor on his brain took Ben's ability to speak away for good.
"For good" -- where in the world did that term ever come from? The only good in it was that Ben, who was so wonderful at making faces anyway, used every muscle in his body to tell Suzanne how much he loved her once he couldn't say those words anymore.
The oddness of the fact that neither could say they'd ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend for their first five decades of life was balanced by the rapid progress of their courtship -- a good word for love that began in a courthouse. The day Ben got his diagnosis, Suzanne brought him home. The cats already loved him -- especially his massive chest and soft stomach. It was Linda, Ben's mother, who was troubled.
Here, all she seemed to crave, even in her widowhood, was a suitable companion for her son -- and now that he'd found one she felt wretched about it every hour of every day. "What was he thinking?" she wondered. "What kind of hussy is this woman who's kidnapped my only son?" Linda was beside herself. And who heard all about it 12 times a day? Ben's sister Karen, of course.
Karen did what she'd done all her life -- just look her mom in the eye and nod. That was her job; that was always her default position on everything when it came to family. Her mother had always been very good to her, and the unspoken bargain was that Karen would just go along with whatever her mother had in mind. Now all she heard over and over was "How in the world could your brother do this to me, to us, to this family?"
And all the time Karen was just so happy that Ben had found anyone at all. Here he had brain cancer, and yet she'd never seen him so happy in her life. There was a quietness about him now, a serenity that no member of her family had ever exhibited before. The Reasoners (oddly named) were never known for placid calmness. It was like Ben had become a wise teacher or something, and it was like it had happened overnight -- or at least it seemed like that. There was just something about the combination of a life-threatening illness and a first love that put him in this holy zone... and Karen's mother couldn't see it. It was like she thought Ben had just been taken hostage by the Scientologists.
One day at the dollar store Karen finally had enough of her mother running down her brother. He'd been hospitalized that week, and Linda had not shown any interest in going to see her son.
"Mother," said Karen, adopting a tone Linda had never before heard on Karen's lips, "Ben is happy. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Stunned, Ben's mother began to repeat what a betrayal this relationship was to the whole family.
"Mother," said Karen, "let me finish."
"But you asked me a question," said Linda.
Karen continued right on. "Mother, after 48 years it's my turn to talk." Linda quieted right down.
"Mother, when John and I divorced last year you were a brick. You stood by me as closely as any daughter could hope for. My friends all commented on it. They thought you were amazing, the way you supported me but never interfered. Angie said over and over she wished she had a mother like you. All my friends just thought you were a breath of fresh air when it came to a family crisis."
Linda opened her mouth to speak.
"Don't you dare say a word," said Karen. "It's taken everything in me to get this far with you."
Linda hushed up.
"Oh, Mother, I'm sorry, but with Ben so sick and so in love, and Suzanne such a tender support -- Mother, I just don't even recognize you anymore. You won't even go see him. Mother, you haven't even spoken to him in a week."
"How do you know th..."
"Because he told me. It was like the last thing he was able to say."
Linda began to weep silently.
"Ben's hurt, Mom. He doesn't know how long he's got, and he can't bear that this short time is being eaten up by this bitterness in your heart. I don't know if you're jealous or just afraid of the scandal this might cause with your friends. Frankly, I don't care. All I care about is Ben -- and Mother, don't you think it's a good thing that after all these decades he's finally, you know, a little bit happy?"
Karen took a breath there in the aisle by the cards, where they were looking for something for her mom's sister Ada, who was about to turn 80.
"Mom, Ben wishes he could have met Suzanne 30 years ago. He's sorry. I know he's sorry the relationship isn't more, you know, conventional. But he doesn't know what he could say to you if he could speak. You have to be the one to open the door. And don't think we have all the time in the world. All I know is, well, the oncologist says that with this kind of tumor..."
Linda shuddered.
"With this kind of tumor, anything can happen at any time." That was all Karen could say. They went out to the car and headed home.
Halfway to Karen's, Linda said, "Take me to the hospital." Karen obliged her mother. They drove in silence. Under the entrance, Linda asked if she could go in alone.
"Of course, Mother," said Karen. Linda walked slowly, breathing a bit hard, all the way to Oncology. Though she had not been there, she knew the room number -- 413.
The door was open, but only halfway. It took everything in her to open it wide enough to enter. The lights were dim and a curtain was drawn around the bed. Linda paused. She heard nothing -- no sound at all.
The silence terrified her. It made her fear the worst. Summoning all the courage she could, she looked around the curtain. There she saw her Ben, asleep in the recliner, wearing his hospital issue blues. Suzanne was there too, asleep in the hospital bed. The bed and recliner were pushed together. There they lay, holding hands.
It struck Linda that she had never seen a more beautiful couple in her entire life.
Scott Dalgarno is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Ashland, Oregon. He is also an adjunct professor at Southern Oregon University, where he teaches Film and Ethics. His poetry, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The Christian Century, America: The National Catholic Weekly, The Antioch Review, and Alive Now.
Counting the Cost
Argile Smith
Luke 14:25-33; Psalm 1
Lily and her grandmother Connie enjoyed shopping together. Connie had a reputation for being a seasoned veteran of the shopping art, and Lily always seemed eager to learn from her mentor. Even though she was only a preschooler, Lily showed a keen interest in money and spending it on things she enjoyed. In her little purse, she protected four one-dollar bills that Connie had given to her. In Lily's little mind, she preserved the promise that Connie had made to her about taking her shopping so she could spend her money on something pretty.
Connie kept her promise and took Lily on a shopping trip. They had a great time going from store to store, looking at the merchandise and talking about the pretty things they saw. Not long into their shopping trip, however, Lily spotted a toy cell phone. It looked almost like her dad's cell phone, and it made some of the same sounds. She knew immediately that she wanted it.
That's when she turned to her grandmother and asked, "Nanna, how much does it cost?"
After looking at the price tag, Connie broke the bad news. The cell phone cost ten dollars, but Lily only had four dollars. Lily opened her little purse and pulled out the four one-dollar bills she had been saving. With her money in her little hand, she asked, "Can't I have it if I pay four dollars for it?"
"No, sweetheart," Connie replied as she tried to consoler her granddaughter. "The store won't give it to you for four dollars. You need to have six more dollars if you want to buy it."
Lily listened to the bad news and stood silently for a moment. All of the life seemed to have been flushed from her face, and her big blue eyes began to fill with tears. Connie took her in her arms and hugged her, assuring her that one day soon she would have the money she needed to buy the phone.
Each day after the shopping trip, Connie made a special effort to visit with Lily. On each trip she would give Lily another one-dollar bill to put in her purse. After a week or so of these daily visits, Connie and Lily went shopping again. On this trip, however, they made their way first to the store with the toy cell phones. Once inside the store, they found the rack bulging with cell phones and searched until they found the one that Lily wanted. Then she and Connie walked proudly to the cash register. As they walked, Lily gripped the cell phone like a prize. At the register, Lily paid for her newly acquired treasure by counting out the cost one dollar bill at a time. Unlike before, Lily knew that she had enough money this time to make the cell phone her very own. She had come prepared. Therefore, she knew that she wouldn't leave the store empty-handed.
Lily walked out of the store with her treasure in hand. She didn't mind paying the price because she knew that what she had in her hand made the cost worthwhile.
***
Jesus knew what serving Him would cost His followers. Like the wise builder and the shrewd king in the story recorded in Luke 14:28-33, Jesus had already figured out how much Kingdom work would cost the people who devoted themselves to Him. It would cost us everything. But as Psalm 1 implies, the benefits of devoting ourselves entirely to Him make the cost more than worthwhile.
Argile Smith is vice president for advancement at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has been the pastor of several congregations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and has also served as a preaching professor, chairman of the Division of Pastoral Ministries, and director of the communications center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at NOTBS, Smith regularly hosted the Gateway to Truth program on the FamilyNet television network.
Lopsided Clay
Timothy F. Merrill
Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand..."
-- Jeremiah 18:6b
My wife is a potter. She has a wheel in the sunroom and a kiln in the garage. She has a scale for mixing her own glazes, and she has a wedging board where she works the clay.
This metaphor of the potter and the clay is not new. We "get it" right away. We understand how the potter works with the clay, kneading it and preparing it so that it can be formed into something creative and/or useful. We understand how the pot in the making may need to be destroyed, and that the potter may have to throw the lifeless lump of clay on the wheel again and start over. We see the connection between that clay and ourselves, and the Potter and God.
It's a great metaphor.
But I'll tell you what: there's one aspect of "throwing a pot" that I didn't understand until my wife tried to teach me how to make a pot on the wheel. There is one step I hadn't heard about. After the potter wedges the clay and kneads it to a consistency suitable for throwing, the potter throws (literally) the lump of clay on the wheel. Then, before raising the clay into the form of a bowl or pot, she must "center" the clay.
Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like she burns incense and goes into a Zen-like trance, murmuring "Ommmmmmmmm" and stuff like that -- trying to center the clay consciousness so that when she works with it, the clay will be "willing" to become the beautiful vessel she imagines in some altered or heightened state of Buddha-awareness. Nothing like that.
The clay must be physically centered on the wheel. If it is not, when she draws the clay up into a bowl the clay will become lopsided and floppy, and it will either simply implode and collapse in her hands or go flying and spinning off the wheel, sticking to walls and windows beside her in hundreds of muddy and quite worthless fragments.
So she centers the clay. It is so hard to do this. I've tried. I've tried with small lumps of clay. Jeanie can do it with huge chunks, which is amazing because she has to use incredible physical strength to get the clay centered.
You cup your left hand around the clay, get the wheel spinning, and then using the heel of your right hand you push against the clay until you've developed a cone of clay that's spinning around, perfectly centered and symmetrical.
Only then can the Potter begin to shape and transform the clay into something beautiful.
There are many Christians who say to God, "I'm here for you. Work on me, prepare me, knead me, make something beautiful out of my life." But when God gets them on the wheel of life, they resist being totally and perfectly centered. Instead, their lives are so full of other things, other distractions, that they can't possibly be fully attuned to what God wants to do with them. And that is how they stay: lumps of clay on the wheel, spinning endlessly out-of-center, wondering why their lives are so misshapen, distorted, without beauty, function, or form.
The hand of God we feel upon us is the hand of the Potter trying to center us, trying to focus us, and trying to prepare us to be a vessel that is awesome and beautiful.
Timothy F. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of the CSS volume Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Series IV, Cycle C) and Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press).
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StoryShare, September 9, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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What's Up This Week
"Terminally Shy" by Scott Dalgarno
"Counting the Cost" by Argile Smith
"Lopsided Clay" by Timothy F. Merrill
What's Up This Week
A true companion is a touchstone that can make all the difference in coping with the ever-shifting sands of modern life -- but for many, locating that steady rock is a lifelong pursuit. In our featured piece in this edition of StoryShare, Scott Dalgarno tells the touching story of a man who took his time to find that special someone... and of his mother's curious reaction to the somewhat unconventional circumstances in which he found her. Then Argile Smith compares the beaming delight of a young girl who has gotten a treasured item to the happiness that is ours when we are willing to bear the cost of discipleship. And Timothy Merrill reminds us that when working with clay, being centered is vital -- and if we don't let God center us, then our lives will certainly be misshapen pots.
* * * * * * * * *
Terminally Shy
Scott Dalgarno
Philemon 1-21
The irony of the thing, of course, was how much Ben's mother always hoped he'd find a nice girl. Right up to the day he turned 50 she continued to tell him about "that nice Anderson girl who works at the bank."
"She's hardly a girl, Mother," he'd say. "She's worked at the downtown branch since I was in college." Ben's mother just didn't know what to make of her son. She'd tell her bridge-playing friends he was just "terminally shy." It took a real terminal diagnosis for things to really break for him, romantically speaking.
Well, it wasn't the cancer that did it. He'd met Suzanne a couple of months before the results from the MRI came back. She was new in Providence and began attending the Quaker meeting as a way of getting to know some people. Funny, a woman choosing a group that sometimes sits in a room for an entire hour saying nothing at all as a vehicle for finding community. If Ben was terminally shy, Suzanne's timidity was awaiting a serious prognosis.
Up until she met Ben, Suzanne told friends she was a cat person. That's all she'd say when a friend would ask if she wanted to meet a certain single friend or cousin. Suzanne had no problems with stray kittens (she often had two or three around her apartment), but she said she had no interest in making a project of someone's alcoholic brother.
Ben never was that specific about relationships. He'd just say in a general way, "Women are like elephants to me. I like to look at them, but I'd never want to own one." His childhood friends thought him funny -- funny ha-ha... and just plain, you know, funny. They'd long given up trying to interest him in a blind date.
What was truly funny, looking back, was that they met not within the walls of the church they both attended, but in a pew in civil court. Alice, a mutual Quaker friend, was divorcing her husband of ten years, and she had enlisted both Suzanne and Ben to testify that she was a good mother and not the wicked witch her soon-to-be ex was trying to paint her as. Blessedly, neither was asked to take the stand, but the proceedings lasted an entire day and the two found themselves sharing a tuna sandwich alone in the funky cafeteria the county had been running for a hundred years. Ben had forgotten his wallet and Suzanne insisted the sandwich was much too big for her to eat alone.
There they sat in silence, elbows on formica, until Ben said it sounded an awful lot like church. Suzanne nearly choked, and following that respectful silence it seemed neither shut up for a moment until the tumor on his brain took Ben's ability to speak away for good.
"For good" -- where in the world did that term ever come from? The only good in it was that Ben, who was so wonderful at making faces anyway, used every muscle in his body to tell Suzanne how much he loved her once he couldn't say those words anymore.
The oddness of the fact that neither could say they'd ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend for their first five decades of life was balanced by the rapid progress of their courtship -- a good word for love that began in a courthouse. The day Ben got his diagnosis, Suzanne brought him home. The cats already loved him -- especially his massive chest and soft stomach. It was Linda, Ben's mother, who was troubled.
Here, all she seemed to crave, even in her widowhood, was a suitable companion for her son -- and now that he'd found one she felt wretched about it every hour of every day. "What was he thinking?" she wondered. "What kind of hussy is this woman who's kidnapped my only son?" Linda was beside herself. And who heard all about it 12 times a day? Ben's sister Karen, of course.
Karen did what she'd done all her life -- just look her mom in the eye and nod. That was her job; that was always her default position on everything when it came to family. Her mother had always been very good to her, and the unspoken bargain was that Karen would just go along with whatever her mother had in mind. Now all she heard over and over was "How in the world could your brother do this to me, to us, to this family?"
And all the time Karen was just so happy that Ben had found anyone at all. Here he had brain cancer, and yet she'd never seen him so happy in her life. There was a quietness about him now, a serenity that no member of her family had ever exhibited before. The Reasoners (oddly named) were never known for placid calmness. It was like Ben had become a wise teacher or something, and it was like it had happened overnight -- or at least it seemed like that. There was just something about the combination of a life-threatening illness and a first love that put him in this holy zone... and Karen's mother couldn't see it. It was like she thought Ben had just been taken hostage by the Scientologists.
One day at the dollar store Karen finally had enough of her mother running down her brother. He'd been hospitalized that week, and Linda had not shown any interest in going to see her son.
"Mother," said Karen, adopting a tone Linda had never before heard on Karen's lips, "Ben is happy. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Stunned, Ben's mother began to repeat what a betrayal this relationship was to the whole family.
"Mother," said Karen, "let me finish."
"But you asked me a question," said Linda.
Karen continued right on. "Mother, after 48 years it's my turn to talk." Linda quieted right down.
"Mother, when John and I divorced last year you were a brick. You stood by me as closely as any daughter could hope for. My friends all commented on it. They thought you were amazing, the way you supported me but never interfered. Angie said over and over she wished she had a mother like you. All my friends just thought you were a breath of fresh air when it came to a family crisis."
Linda opened her mouth to speak.
"Don't you dare say a word," said Karen. "It's taken everything in me to get this far with you."
Linda hushed up.
"Oh, Mother, I'm sorry, but with Ben so sick and so in love, and Suzanne such a tender support -- Mother, I just don't even recognize you anymore. You won't even go see him. Mother, you haven't even spoken to him in a week."
"How do you know th..."
"Because he told me. It was like the last thing he was able to say."
Linda began to weep silently.
"Ben's hurt, Mom. He doesn't know how long he's got, and he can't bear that this short time is being eaten up by this bitterness in your heart. I don't know if you're jealous or just afraid of the scandal this might cause with your friends. Frankly, I don't care. All I care about is Ben -- and Mother, don't you think it's a good thing that after all these decades he's finally, you know, a little bit happy?"
Karen took a breath there in the aisle by the cards, where they were looking for something for her mom's sister Ada, who was about to turn 80.
"Mom, Ben wishes he could have met Suzanne 30 years ago. He's sorry. I know he's sorry the relationship isn't more, you know, conventional. But he doesn't know what he could say to you if he could speak. You have to be the one to open the door. And don't think we have all the time in the world. All I know is, well, the oncologist says that with this kind of tumor..."
Linda shuddered.
"With this kind of tumor, anything can happen at any time." That was all Karen could say. They went out to the car and headed home.
Halfway to Karen's, Linda said, "Take me to the hospital." Karen obliged her mother. They drove in silence. Under the entrance, Linda asked if she could go in alone.
"Of course, Mother," said Karen. Linda walked slowly, breathing a bit hard, all the way to Oncology. Though she had not been there, she knew the room number -- 413.
The door was open, but only halfway. It took everything in her to open it wide enough to enter. The lights were dim and a curtain was drawn around the bed. Linda paused. She heard nothing -- no sound at all.
The silence terrified her. It made her fear the worst. Summoning all the courage she could, she looked around the curtain. There she saw her Ben, asleep in the recliner, wearing his hospital issue blues. Suzanne was there too, asleep in the hospital bed. The bed and recliner were pushed together. There they lay, holding hands.
It struck Linda that she had never seen a more beautiful couple in her entire life.
Scott Dalgarno is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Ashland, Oregon. He is also an adjunct professor at Southern Oregon University, where he teaches Film and Ethics. His poetry, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The Christian Century, America: The National Catholic Weekly, The Antioch Review, and Alive Now.
Counting the Cost
Argile Smith
Luke 14:25-33; Psalm 1
Lily and her grandmother Connie enjoyed shopping together. Connie had a reputation for being a seasoned veteran of the shopping art, and Lily always seemed eager to learn from her mentor. Even though she was only a preschooler, Lily showed a keen interest in money and spending it on things she enjoyed. In her little purse, she protected four one-dollar bills that Connie had given to her. In Lily's little mind, she preserved the promise that Connie had made to her about taking her shopping so she could spend her money on something pretty.
Connie kept her promise and took Lily on a shopping trip. They had a great time going from store to store, looking at the merchandise and talking about the pretty things they saw. Not long into their shopping trip, however, Lily spotted a toy cell phone. It looked almost like her dad's cell phone, and it made some of the same sounds. She knew immediately that she wanted it.
That's when she turned to her grandmother and asked, "Nanna, how much does it cost?"
After looking at the price tag, Connie broke the bad news. The cell phone cost ten dollars, but Lily only had four dollars. Lily opened her little purse and pulled out the four one-dollar bills she had been saving. With her money in her little hand, she asked, "Can't I have it if I pay four dollars for it?"
"No, sweetheart," Connie replied as she tried to consoler her granddaughter. "The store won't give it to you for four dollars. You need to have six more dollars if you want to buy it."
Lily listened to the bad news and stood silently for a moment. All of the life seemed to have been flushed from her face, and her big blue eyes began to fill with tears. Connie took her in her arms and hugged her, assuring her that one day soon she would have the money she needed to buy the phone.
Each day after the shopping trip, Connie made a special effort to visit with Lily. On each trip she would give Lily another one-dollar bill to put in her purse. After a week or so of these daily visits, Connie and Lily went shopping again. On this trip, however, they made their way first to the store with the toy cell phones. Once inside the store, they found the rack bulging with cell phones and searched until they found the one that Lily wanted. Then she and Connie walked proudly to the cash register. As they walked, Lily gripped the cell phone like a prize. At the register, Lily paid for her newly acquired treasure by counting out the cost one dollar bill at a time. Unlike before, Lily knew that she had enough money this time to make the cell phone her very own. She had come prepared. Therefore, she knew that she wouldn't leave the store empty-handed.
Lily walked out of the store with her treasure in hand. She didn't mind paying the price because she knew that what she had in her hand made the cost worthwhile.
***
Jesus knew what serving Him would cost His followers. Like the wise builder and the shrewd king in the story recorded in Luke 14:28-33, Jesus had already figured out how much Kingdom work would cost the people who devoted themselves to Him. It would cost us everything. But as Psalm 1 implies, the benefits of devoting ourselves entirely to Him make the cost more than worthwhile.
Argile Smith is vice president for advancement at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has been the pastor of several congregations in Louisiana and Mississippi, and has also served as a preaching professor, chairman of the Division of Pastoral Ministries, and director of the communications center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. While at NOTBS, Smith regularly hosted the Gateway to Truth program on the FamilyNet television network.
Lopsided Clay
Timothy F. Merrill
Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand..."
-- Jeremiah 18:6b
My wife is a potter. She has a wheel in the sunroom and a kiln in the garage. She has a scale for mixing her own glazes, and she has a wedging board where she works the clay.
This metaphor of the potter and the clay is not new. We "get it" right away. We understand how the potter works with the clay, kneading it and preparing it so that it can be formed into something creative and/or useful. We understand how the pot in the making may need to be destroyed, and that the potter may have to throw the lifeless lump of clay on the wheel again and start over. We see the connection between that clay and ourselves, and the Potter and God.
It's a great metaphor.
But I'll tell you what: there's one aspect of "throwing a pot" that I didn't understand until my wife tried to teach me how to make a pot on the wheel. There is one step I hadn't heard about. After the potter wedges the clay and kneads it to a consistency suitable for throwing, the potter throws (literally) the lump of clay on the wheel. Then, before raising the clay into the form of a bowl or pot, she must "center" the clay.
Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like she burns incense and goes into a Zen-like trance, murmuring "Ommmmmmmmm" and stuff like that -- trying to center the clay consciousness so that when she works with it, the clay will be "willing" to become the beautiful vessel she imagines in some altered or heightened state of Buddha-awareness. Nothing like that.
The clay must be physically centered on the wheel. If it is not, when she draws the clay up into a bowl the clay will become lopsided and floppy, and it will either simply implode and collapse in her hands or go flying and spinning off the wheel, sticking to walls and windows beside her in hundreds of muddy and quite worthless fragments.
So she centers the clay. It is so hard to do this. I've tried. I've tried with small lumps of clay. Jeanie can do it with huge chunks, which is amazing because she has to use incredible physical strength to get the clay centered.
You cup your left hand around the clay, get the wheel spinning, and then using the heel of your right hand you push against the clay until you've developed a cone of clay that's spinning around, perfectly centered and symmetrical.
Only then can the Potter begin to shape and transform the clay into something beautiful.
There are many Christians who say to God, "I'm here for you. Work on me, prepare me, knead me, make something beautiful out of my life." But when God gets them on the wheel of life, they resist being totally and perfectly centered. Instead, their lives are so full of other things, other distractions, that they can't possibly be fully attuned to what God wants to do with them. And that is how they stay: lumps of clay on the wheel, spinning endlessly out-of-center, wondering why their lives are so misshapen, distorted, without beauty, function, or form.
The hand of God we feel upon us is the hand of the Potter trying to center us, trying to focus us, and trying to prepare us to be a vessel that is awesome and beautiful.
Timothy F. Merrill is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and the Senior Editor of the preaching journal Homiletics. He has published numerous articles in the religious press and in academic journals, and he is the author of the CSS volume Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Series IV, Cycle C) and Learning to Fall: A Guide for the Spiritually Clumsy (Chalice Press).
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StoryShare, September 9, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
