A Different Lenten Practice

This year, along with some of my now routine Lenten disciplines, I have taken on something new: pottery. It is one of those rich, biblical metaphors that I have always wanted to learn more about, and secretly always wanted to try. I have also always suspected that I would learn something new about “throwing a pot/bowl” beyond what one could read in a book or observe in a YouTube training video.

Now that I live two stories above the Square Palette, a pottery painting store that just added a pottery wheel that can be used by customers desiring to learn the craft, I decided it was time to give it a try. So, last Saturday, I threw my first bowl. You can see some of the process in these pics. After my attempt, my youngest daughter gave it a try as well. I am not sure it is an attainable goal or not, but I have great hopes that I may one day be able to fashion  a coffee mug for my wife and a chalice and paten for Holy Communion (hey, everyone needs a goal, right?).

I hope to make a weekly trip to the wheel as part of this year’s Lenten observance that will require my hands to learn something as well as my heart and mind (an insight from this article on quantity vs. quality). Maybe, just maybe, as I seek to make clay conform to my direction and touch I can gain more insight into how to become more mailable in the hands of the Great Potter. If not, I at least plan to have some fun learning about a trade that has been around in one form or another for thousands of years.