It feels like you’re tearing away dross when one first begins to sculpt. No gentle sloping or smoothing, but tearing, pulling, removing that which is so easily seen as not a part of the artist’s plan. Tearing, slicing, removing the excess which is unnecessary to the new structure. Shapeless, the rectangle of clay cannot be understood, too much bulk, too much overshadowing its shape if the unnecessary parts are not removed. Our lives are that way…too busy, too much attempted if we are defining doing as the measure of acceptable and not peace. From the inside though, it feels like you’re being exposed, wounded, revealed, stretched, and perhaps simply undone as you learn this new structure the potter molds in you…
My life has been undergoing a reshaping the last few months. At first the chiseling seemed raw, uncomfortable, and at times unfair or scary. God in his wisdom seemed to be taking a large chisel to my life. No small nicks here and there, but large, often sliced by force, chunks of my life taken suddenly away with one sweep of his hand. And like the sculpture, when one isn’t seeing the finished product (will this chiseling ever end?) it just felt awkward, open, and as though I was missing parts of me. Change is like that you know, what isn’t known is uncomfortable. Any receiver of abuse will tell you it is strange when the abuser leaves too. You become adept at arranging your life to work with that which you cannot escape.
The sculpture imagery doesn’t naturally seem to translate to my life, yet that is exactly what I asked God to do. To mold me, remake me, help me form my life in an image he would have me to be. Yesterday as I worked through seemingly the millionth change He is leading me to face, I realized he is indeed answering my prayers for molding. I simply had in mind refining, not remolding. I suspect most potters do not have to deal with the clay actively fighting to hold on to every piece of dross they are trying to remove as they work to turn the clay into something of beauty….
The pieces of work I admire in museums and galleries always release from the clay, marble, or stone that which could not be experienced without its absence….and I realize that in this change, this Holy Spirit chiseling of my very being….perhaps as He continues to remove from my life that which is surrounding that which he is revealing….this too, my life, will become one that is unencumbered by activities and weights and release my life to the gifts and being that he created within this clay. My daily life so very often filled with tasks, choices of my own choosing that keep me from my best self…and so the chiseling continues…and with each release I begin to experience glimpses of the freedom that chiseling is releasing….in Him.
