Have you seen a potter at work at his/her wheel?
I’m mesmerized by how the tiniest of deliberate action can cause a mass of clay to take shape and become something else. By pushing against the side of the mass, the clay rises up. With the press of the thumb, an indentation is formed. A thin slice of wood when pressed against the rim cuts a strip of clay and leaves an even edge. All the time the wheel silently whirs. And in minutes one has the makings of a vase, a bowl, a cup.
Sometimes I wish the work for peace and development were as precise, and change as evident as the creation that happens in pottery.
Reading Thomas Friedman yesterday I realize that in a sense we are involved in pottery-making of sorts. The earth is our ever spinning wheel and she adds a dynamic that is entirely her own. We who have made change our life’s passion press and shape with and against clay only that it’s a living one. Live clay that has its own intentions and potentials and peculiarities.
It’s bound to be messy. And sometimes we have to begin all over again. But soon enough, many earth revolutions later, a vase, a bowl, a cup, take shape. We have to let them sit out and properly dry; and they have to be fired up just so. And what was once a lump of soil is now a vessel with its own beauty and purpose. And hopefully the change will hold.
So let’s continue to hunker over our respective masses of clay, we lot. And let us be passionate and excellent at our craft so that the living mass can be what it wants to become.
