Learning to throw was hard. It took a lot of time and practice. Life has taught me that anything we accomplish that is worthwhile is pretty hard. Nothing really comes easy. At least that has been my experience. But as I reflect on my pottery experience, I think learning to have patience has been even more challenging than learning to throw was.

We like to have things now. We like to be able to do things now. We want things to work now. And we want things to be ready now.

I knew it was going to be challenging. Any time you try to do anything new it’s challenging. I guess I didn’t really know how challenging it would be. You know the moment when you are about to do something and realize that you have no idea what you are doing? I remember that feeling the first time I walked into a classroom as a student teacher. I had taken four years worth of classes to become a teacher and when I walked in that room for the first time...no idea what I was doing. There’s so much more to being a good teacher than knowing the content. In fact, that really is just a small piece.

When I first started throwing pots on the wheel, centering clay was the most important thing to learn. Of course I could watch my Uncle Robert center a piece of clay on the wheel in a matter of seconds...it was as if he had done it a million times. He made it look so easy. 

For me...learning to center clay was a journey.  A long, frustrating, annoying journey. There were times when I would walk away angry...maybe even a few times that I threw a piece of clay off the wall or at the garbage. T

There are three critical elements to transforming clay on the wheel. If you take any of those elements out the task becomes next to impossible. But when they all work together, the end result is pretty incredible and amazingly rewarding.

It starts with the wheel. When the clay is connected to the wheel, it allows the wheel to do the work. All the clay has to do is attach itself and the wheel takes it from there. The second element is just a little bit of water to soften the clay and make it moldable. When you add the hands of a potter with wisdom, experience, and a vision…incredible creations can be shaped even from clay that once appeared as a waste.

Fifty cents. When I was a kid playing ball at D.W. Wilson community center in Tullahoma, Tennessee, I remember buying fifty cent soda cans from the machine in between pickup games. I’m not sure you can do that any more. In fact, there isn’t a whole lot that fifty cents will buy these days.

There is one thing I know it will buy…a pound of clay. Enough to make a nice looking coffee mug. Clay is pretty cheap. It’s pretty ordinary. Pretty plain.

What am I accomplishing? This is the question that I was finding at the root of everything I was doing. Like most of you, I wear a lot of hats….husband, father, friend, teacher, coach, food pantry director, minister. I was wearing a lot of hats when I was confronted with this question. Am I good at any of it? Am I what people need? Am I influencing? Am I doing what God called me to do?