In college I took a semester of pottery. I am a creative person who has thrived in art classes before and I came into this class excited about what I could create with a new medium. Lo and behold, working with clay on a spinning wheel can be more difficult than it seems. While I won’t say I thrived in the class, I do still have some of the pieces I made – one of which I am looking at now as it sits on my desk holding paint brushes. The beauty of working with clay is that it can be reworked – trust me, I have plenty of experience with that. Isaiah’s eyes did not deceive him, a potter trying again, can “[make] of the clay another object of whatever sort.”

This first reading gives me great hope, especially in these days. After the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor in the United States, our collective consciousness, particularly for white people like me, has finally taken seriously the cry of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in their experiences of racism and racial inequity. Taking seriously the benefits I gain from systems set up to more easily allow me to succeed and the role I play in racism – both consciously and unconsciously – has shown me that my vessel’s walls have caved in. What I am being shaped into is not always open to receiving the light, love, and gift that each person, created in the image of God, has to offer. So, I am being reworked, just like “the clay in the hand of the potter.”

And truly, thank God. I am not stuck in these patterns, this way of being in the world; not unable to be reshaped, reworked, reformed. This reworking, unlearning and relearning, allows me to get closer to who God wants me to be in this world – a person of love who seeks justice and strives for peace, paying most attention to those who are oppressed and on the margins. This work is difficult and necessary, and this is why we have community to lean into, to listen to and learn from, to strive to be better for each other, together. Our vessel is being reworked, I pray in hope for who we will become.