To Be of Use

The very basic substance of clay is transformed into beautiful and useful objects by the potter's hand, friction, the spinning energy of the wheel, and the fire of the kiln. If we are the clay on the potter’s wheel, what is forming us? Can we learn to receive and respond to the friction and fire of life and welcome the transformation being worked in us? For what beautiful and useful work are we designed?

Marge Piercy, in her poem To Be of Use writes: "The work of the world is common as mud. /Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. / But the thing worth doing well / done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. / Greek amphoras for wine or oil, / Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums / but you know they were made to be used. /The pitcher cries for water to carry / and a person for work that is real."

What kinds of pressures and spinning energy are generating formative friction in your life? Do you resist being molded by the friction around you? Are you able to yield to the guidance from a master potter? Will the fires of the kiln of life bring out the shimmering glazes that are unique to you? Or will some undetected flaw in the clay, a long hidden inclusion react to the stress of the heat and cause the pot to break?

Like a pot on the potter's wheel, our most successful formation begins with centering. What practices are you undertaking now that help you center in the midst of the spinning energy of life?