Various Vessels
a devotional for summer
Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:
On last week’s discussion thread, we talked about the different ways we nourish ourselves when the “slugs of life” nibble at our stems! There were so many great answers, but I wanted to highlight what Kerry Jane says here:
“I often feel like a tomato seedling that germinated too early before the warm weather where it has to try to survive until the summer comes. In order to regrow, I wish I had a life based on inspiration rather than survival, and I wish I had people I could rely on. I like time spent by the ocean, swimming, and time for creative pursuits. During the winter time a cup of tea and a movie marathon isn’t so bad either lol.”
Very insightful, Kerry Jane! I think we can all relate, to some degree! Kerry Jane is a fellow Substack writer, and her newsletter—a serialized scifi novel—is coming soon! Check it out and follow along here!
If you want to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!
Now, on with this week’s devotional…
at the tent where they sell handmade pottery I stop, and take turns lifting every mug in my hands. each one is different, unique and I'm not sure what I'm looking for until I find it; various vessels for various needs. I'm looking for color, heft, stability, and a certain... something. the next day at home when I fill my purchase with coffee, a blue-glazed round-bottomed generously-handled beauty; I watch the steam rise and the coffee spin and think of the wheel always turning turning; the potter lifting each mug in gentle hands looking for a certain... something. various vessels for various needs.
This weekend, I had the great privilege of attending one of my favorite arts festivals, a tiny one-day affair overlooking a hidden harbor in a hidden inlet of Puget Sound. For the last two years this particular festival could not be held, so its return was heralded…and very well attended.
I find that when I go to markets and festivals I gravitate toward certain booths and artisans more than others. I love creative jewelry, interesting woodwork, and fragrant small-batch soaps. But my true Achilles heel? Pottery. Handmade pottery.
I love the quirks of glazing, the unique shapes and sizes, and the creative designs that potters can come up with. It’s a beautiful craft, and also useful, which I think is something else entirely.
Nothing says that art must be useful, but when it is, it thrills me!
Recently, I found myself in a discussion with a new friend about mugs. She had come to my house for a visit, and when I offered her coffee she chose a handmade mug from my cupboard that I thrifted ages ago and never use. She beelined right for it! I don’t use it much because it’s too big for me; I find that my coffee goes cold too fast in a big mug. But she loved it, because she loves nursing giant mugs of coffee. I ended up sending it home with her at the end of her visit; clearly she would appreciate it better than I had!
Various vessels for various needs, you might say.
This, to me, is the amazing thing about handmade anything, but especially mugs, cups, bowls, and other practical things. They are made with a mixture of intention—needing to be made well enough to be useful—as well as beauty, because why create something yourself at all if you aren’t going to put your imagination behind it?
So also with us, I think.
I believe that we were made with a mixture of intention and beauty. That we are all shaped differently, inside and out. Handcrafted for various uses. But above all, there is unique beauty in us all. (Yes, even in the worst of us!)
We bear the marks of God’s imagination all over ourselves, glazes and shapes and designs and defects and quirks, yet glimmering and alive with purpose. This is how we recognize each other. This is how we know we are all made by the same Artist.
Handmade, and filled with a certain…something.
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Thank you so much for the shout out! I was not expecting it at all and it made my day. I also enjoyed experiencing pottery through this lens. It is always a uniquely favored circumstance when functionality and creativity come together with items in our home. I have a ceramic jar that appears as cactus in a pot but they’re actually measuring spoons, and the pot is a measuring cup. Small vessels that offer both utility and aesthetic ❤️.
Beautiful image! I like how the New Living Translation renders Isaiah 45:9: "Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, 'Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’" How often in life do we discover that our very quirks and apparent "flaws" are exactly what God intended? It's humbling to consider the intimate care which the Father employed to fashion each one of us -- and no two alike!