I had gone to the class, excitement tingling in my fingers and throughout my whole body. But as the time ticked on, I slowly became more and more frustrated with myself. I was attentive to the instructor; I had listened to everything they explained and demonstrated, and tried my best to apply the same techniques to the lump of clay in front of me. My hands were clumsy and awkward, trying to push and pull the clay to sit at the centre of the wheel, to imitate the same careful pulling upwards to form something that might resemble a cup. In my intense longing to succeed, I failed, and quickly pushed through the thinning clay to make the whole form collapse. When I got home, I broke down in tears.
Slow Hands: Pottery & Prayer
The night I got home after my first pottery lesson, I felt like a failure. I had wanted to show promise as a potter from the beginning; this skill was something I had been hankering to learn for years.
I have often felt the same in my prayer life: blundering and awkward, trying to talk to God without really knowing what to say or how I should be, getting frustrated at my own inability to keep my thoughts silent long enough to hear him speak. I happened across contemplative prayer unexpectedly. It was like I stumbled across a threshold, as if someone had opened a doorway in front of me that I couldn’t see until I was already tumbling through it. In my walk with God, I felt a kind of pulling back of the veil, an invitation to enter a space without echoes: emptied of noise but full of brightness. I didn’t have a name for it until a friend said to me “I think you’re being drawn into contemplative prayer.” Suddenly everything was illuminated.
I would describe prayer like this as being flooded with God, finding yourself completely immersed in his presence. It feels as if I am walking hand-in-hand with Jesus, always beside him. I see us wandering through life and pointing out the pebbles and shells in the road as we go, delighting in them together. It is like a sunflower: being always kept inside a sunbeam’s warm embrace, my face constantly turned toward, smiling into the brightness. A being-with, savouring of his presence. With my friend’s encouragement, I began to notice the pockets in life where I felt glimpses of this brightness.
The process of pottery requires patience. It takes time, and requires gentle, steady movements. I am compelled to slow down and notice the plasticity of the clay beneath my hands, to be attentive to what is before me as I push, pull, trim and scrape. I have discovered contentment in this movement toward the refinement of a form. I can’t always turn out a perfectly polished piece of art; but I can allow the flops and failures to teach me patience and to go again. In this slow learning, a kind of pocket of spaciousness, room to think, makes itself known. As I watch my hands at work, my focus on “doing” gives way to awe, as I see the clay—this creation-gift of soil and water—take on a new form. There is a transformation taking place, a slow process in which a kind of veil lifts, a formless lump of fresh clay yielding a magnificent form: a bowl, say, or a mug, a vessel that—although humble and everyday—will delight someone, and serve them well.
In this clay-caked pocket, I’ve found myself flooded with brightness. Maybe it is natural that I’ve found the process of pottery creating space for a kind of prayer that is similar: prayer requiring patience and slow learning, a pocket with room to think. It’s also a place of awe, of transformation, a moulding of something new. As with pottery, this contemplative prayer takes time; it requires slow and steady movements. And patience opens the door for gratitude. I can enter without fear, allowing all that I am drawn to do to come before the Lord, as I gaze upon his face and mould some clay with my hands. I am working in the presence of his glory and majesty; my hands move and shape something from his creation, and in this process, I am also being made new. I am learning to lean in, to yield to the Lord’s initiative and give him what I have. With patience and gratitude, I pick up my “sleeping, eating, working, art-making, clay-throwing life” and place it before God as an offering. It is in this slow process that the veil lifts. I am sitting with the Lord, marveling at his face and gazing in awe at his glory.
In our lives at work, too: God’s slow hands, steady; patient and gentle.
