This Lump of Clay

My daughter and I sit at the dining room table and gawk at the lump of gray in front of us. I’m not sure what to do, so I stick my finger in it. It’s cold to the touch.

 

“What are you supposed to do?” I ask her.

 

She rests her chin in her hand and says, “I don’t know. Whatever I want, I guess.”

 

“And this is homework?”

 

“Yes.” She pauses, and I can see her mind churning. It’s a little mind, a young mind, but a powerful one.

 

“What’cha thinking?”

“What if I kept it like this?” she asks. “I could tell the teacher it’s a cow patty.”

 

She giggles into her hand and I let her, because hearing a child laugh is the closest thing you can get in this world to hearing an angel sing.

 

“That’s not bad,” I say, “but I don’t think that’s what your teacher had in mind. I think what she’s really after is for you to make something.”

 

“But I can’t make anything,” she says.

 

“Sure you can. It’s art.”

 

She moves her hand away from her chin. “What’s that mean?”

 

“That means you just need to have fun and not try so hard. You have to turn your insides out.”

 

She doesn’t seem to like that idea. I can’t blame her. Turning your insides out is a tough thing, whether it’s on paper or with clay. But it’s a good thing, too. It lets people know they aren’t alone and that when you get right down to it, everyone is the same regardless.

 

“What if I don’t do it right?” she asks.

 

“I don’t think you can do it wrong,” I tell her. “It’s like looking inside and what you feel and think and like, and taking a picture of it. The only difference is that to let everyone else see it, you have to use your hands and not Wal-mart.”

 

She sets to work then, mashing and rolling and shaping. She smiles and makes a joke, which makes us both laugh, but then comes the silence that creating always seems to bring. A holy silence. The sort of silence that comes just before nothing becomes Something.

 

I let her work, knowing that it’s much more play now.

 

Ten minutes later, she’s done. A smiling sun stares up at me, it’s rays drifting outward in small arcs to gather in the cold and the hopeless. I’m happy with the result. Not because it’s flawless, but because she did what she was supposed to—she turned herself inside out.

 

“Thanks for teaching me, Daddy,” she says.

 

I give an approving nod and offer a quiet welcome, but the truth is that she’s taught me much more.

 

Because I too wonder at this gray lump of life I’ve been given. I wonder what I can do with it and, more, what God wants me to do with it. There are times when I don’t think much can be done with it at all. It’s drab. Cold to the touch. And I think the best thing it could be, the very best, would somewhat resemble a cow patty.

 

But the great thing about our world and our God is that spending time with both shows us otherwise. We can be beautiful if we let ourselves. We can take that lump of life and make something of it, something that will inspire and comfort and gather in the cold and the hopeless.

 

That’s art.

 

No doubt about it.

 

 

Billy Coffey's first novel, Snow Day, will be released October 11, which means he still has some time to shape his own lump of clay. You can see what he's making by visiting his blog at billycoffey.com or connecting with him on Twitter at @billycoffey.

Comments

[Cassandra Frear]

Beautiful. Well said.

It's a mystery, but God does it somehow if we partner with him. I'm working on a longer project right. It feels like I'm turning myself inside out.

Strange that it would be so uncomfortable. But I know that's the way God creates art through us.

[katdish]

You've done so much with the lump of clay you've been given. And the best part is we get a glimpse of God's handiwork with everything you write. What a blessing.

[Hillary]

Just what I needed to hear today. Thank you.

[Dacia Bryan]

I'm glad His patient hand continually goes back to the waters and smoothes my rough edges away as He turns me around in His love and grace.

[Sarah Salter]

Don't you sometimes wish you could just bottle that sweetness and joyful beauty that she has? God has big plans for that little girl, Billy Coffey. You just mark my words...

[Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts]

Gosh, I love this. Great post!

[terri tiffany]

Awesome post as usual! How do you get your brain to work so good like that?

[Sandra King]

This is good. So, so good! Only you could give us this kind of turning-insides-out art with a lump of clay.

[Madison Richards]

Very nice...Great example Billy!

[Doug Spurling]

and God chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise...1 Cor. 1:27

thanks Billy.

[Stefanie Jackson]

What an inspiration you are to us all with this sweet story. I plan to read your "Snow Day" for a fall treat.