To start with, let me be perfectly clear. I was not born a craft-y person. I could make nothing recognizable with my playdoh, and the scarves I made with my knitting jenny turned into long shapeless things. I’m still quite sure the skirt I tried to make in junior high sewing class made my Mother cry. Don’t feel sorry for me, though.
As I’ve grown, I’ve gained a little bit of patience. With the aid of a loom, my scarves actually look like scarves now. People even wear them! Yet, even though my “art” is nothing more than glorified stick figures, when a good friend of mine offered to teach me to throw pottery on a wheel, I jumped at the chance.
I made a lot of mistakes, of course. I collapsed a couple of pieces, broke through the wall of another by exerting too much pressure. I even made the classic mistake of not anchoring the clay to the wheel properly, only to watch it fly, spinning across the room.
But somewhere along the line, I actually managed to create a decent bowl. Not perfect certainly, but a bowl that is worth firing. And then I made another, and another, and discovered just how fulfilling this activity can be. By giving myself permission to be imperfect and make mistakes, I allowed myself the freedom to enjoy a new outlet for creativity.
Life is a lot like my experiences in the ceramics lab this week. How many times have we driven people away from ourselves, breaking our relationship with them, by pushing them too hard? How many well-intentioned plans have we made to help others that collapsed in on themselves? How many times have we acted first, prayed later, and watched our projects spin out of control?
None of us is perfect, we all will make mistakes. We spend so much time striving to be what we are not–perfect, and covering up the inevitable mistakes–that we lose the joy and glory of life itself.
The joy is in the learning, the striving, and the doing. The end results are important too, but they are the icing on the cake.
We are not called to be perfect but to anchor ourselves to Him who is perfect, like clay on the wheel. When we let His hands cover ours as we work the clay, even our mistakes can become beautiful.
Copyright © 2013, Carol Ann Chybowski
Carol Ann Chybowski
Carol Ann Chybowski is a long time member of the Catholic Writers Guild. She has published book reviews at various websites and appears in two volumes of A Community of Voices: An Anthology of Santa Barbara. When not busy about her parish, Carol Ann can be found knitting, gardening, or on horseback.
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