Just like the clay in the potter’s hand,
so are you in my hand.
—Jeremiah 18.6
There are those who hope to get through life unaffected,
untouched.
But I say: life, affect me. God, touch me.
Let this life and all its pains and beauties shape me.
For whatever genius you place
in the wrenching hands of fate and all that befalls me,
you also work your art in me;
and it is only in the dance between hand and clay
that the masterpiece is born.
I’d rather be shaped by life than by my own little self.
So, yes, I will let beauty shape gratitude and wonder in me,
and suffering shape patience and gentleness,
and failure shape humility and perseverance,
and pain shape sensitivity to the heart,
and even loss, oh, the firm hand of loss pressing on the clay,
shape love and more loveliness, and attention to this day.
I will be shaped, molded and remade a thousand times,
because all the Artist ever means is to perfect me,
I who have always been, ever from the beginning,
dust of the earth you have gathered up,
shaped with loving hands, and breathed your life into.
Shape me, God, create me again, and keep breathing new life into me.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net