From the beginning of my venture into claying, I knew one thing with certainty; I didn’t know anything at all about what I was doing and, until I learned a bit, this activity seemed rather like playing with play dough. While there is nothing wrong with that and I love doing that with precious little girls (four and two), the end of the activity is to smush it all up and put it the clay back up to play with another day. We didn’t make anything sustainable.
Lesson 1: Internet and YouTube can take you to another level and another world in almost anything. So bottom line, just like when we started that first year of school, claying is a building process. That’s why if someone asked me how I “did” that on a piece, I probably have a deer-in-the-headlights look. I don’t know how to tell them. There is not always any short version.
This is the same for just about everything including those years between 1 and 4. I meaning walking wasn’t easy to teach to a little one. Or, going to the bathroom. Or, using a spoon. Now, however, those babies have that down pat.
I’m still in life’s middle school for lots of things even though I have a college degree in something. That degree doesn’t mean, either, that I know much about that discipline even now. Some of us sit in middle school in many areas. Relationships, faith growth, self-discipline require new and improved lessons in every season of my life.
One important lesson learned early is to ask, research, listen, explore, admire, make choices and accept that not all attempts with be successful. We learn to deal with those that flop.
I was baptized in a Baptist Church so many years ago that I don’t even remember my age at the time. I know more about Jesus now, for sure, and about God the Father Who put this ball into play. However, I am still in elementary or middle school there. Here, also, I need to learn, relearn and reapply all lessons in this season of life.
Actually, the therapy of clay has helped me immensely in my faith, in many life lessons and self value. In addition of actually being able to say on occasion, “That one is actually pretty,” I have learned that joy in the process of failure that eluded me in life and in claying. I learned that the product of my efforts is not really about me but the process will be immensely illuminating: it is about loving the world around me. And, loving my neighbor.
