We Are Known

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:4-5

Much of my work deals with offering possibilities for discerning God’s call. All of my work is about discernment of a God-ward direction.

The opening of Jeremiah puts that vocational discernment work into an appropriate context. The call comes to the unformed being at the soul level. God knows us.

And this forming, referred to in Jeremiah, reminds us of the first forming of human out of dust and spirit in Genesis. Each of us is formed. We are clay and we are spirit.

Dust and water become clay and when shaped by divine impulses can become resonant vessels for prayer and for prophecy.

And thus the struggle begins. When we are too much dust, we are stiff and resistant to being shaped. When life moves in and tries to shape us we crack and sometimes we break.

If we are too much water, we cannot hold a shape. Any movement into our being is met by melting and sliding away.

So discernment of the knowing hands, which are longing to create a vessel that can hold both holiness and creativity, requires both solidity and elasticity.

We must hold ourselves lightly as we listen for and discern God’s call in our life. This does not mean that we are not intently listening.

If God already knows us, we have nothing to lose. We can be ourselves. In fact, God is hoping that we will relax enough to let the beauty of the soul shimmer through both the dust and the water of our clay vessels.

In the high desert of New Mexico, up in the mountains there are deposits of micaceous clay, which is 80% mica. When these pots are formed and fired they shine like gold from the mica. This is how I begin to visualize our own clay vessels, unearthed, shaped and fired-in other words-formed by the divine Potter who is the author of our shining moments, and startlingly beautiful souls.

This is what one of the potters from New Mexico says about the pottery made from this extraordinary clay:

“Indian people view pottery not only as containers for food or other items, but also as containers and givers of life. They are beings created by the union of clay and water through the potter’s hands and thoughts, which are transferred into the vessel.” ~Felipe Ortega

As we return to our scripture from Jeremiah, we can begin to see some clear directions for our prayer and our understanding:
We are known.
We are being formed by God’s insistent presence, and
We are beautiful.
Blessings,
Debra

For more about pottery go to: http://www.janmica.com/Biography_of_a_Pot.html