Saturday, March 29, 2014

HANDS OFF MY CLAY POT!

"Hands off my clay pot, people! Just leave me alone! I want to become holy all by myself."

That's how I feel when people interrupt my schedule, take up my time, frustrate me, irritate me, rub me the wrong way, and otherwise ruffle my feathers.

If it just weren't for people in my life, I would be so happy in my private comfort zone.

"What? Lord, did You say You are the One who sends PEOPLE into my life to MAKE me holy? That sounds far-fetched to me. You say that I'd just stay a diamond in the rough were it not for the abrasiveness of human relationships to make me into a precious gem to shine for You?  Please explain that to me, Lord....


 (A Personified Selection from Leona Choy's unpublished-yet book, GOTHIC ARCHIE AND OTHER IMMAGINEERINGS: Fables of God's Kingdom for Grown-Ups.)

The Interpersonal Relationship of Clods

We clods lay ignored in a huddled heap in our wooden crate on the back porch for so long that we lost track of time. 

The Man found us scattered in gullies and crevices on the mountain and brought us to this Unknown Place. At least Out There we could breathe. Here we were smashed one clump against another, quite homogenized globs of dirt, undistinguishable from each other.

“What do you plan to do with those muddy clods?” a curious voice asked.

“I’m going to turn each one into the likes of these,” The Man answered. We shoved at each other trying to see through the slats of the crate. 

The Man displayed to his friend a splendid collection of highly polished stones that sparkled like diamonds.

Our hopes soared! We fairly trembled with anticipation to think that each of us would quickly be lifted out of our anonymity and transformed one by one through some instant miracle into costly gems.

“Come along and I’ll show you how it’s done,” invited The Man.

He dragged our crate out of the shadows. But instead of picking us out one by one for a magical transformation, as we expected, He dumped all of us misshapen, mud-caked clods into a huge steel drum. 

Oh! How it hurt to be treated so ignominiously! The jagged edges of each clod hit and scraped against each other! Scarcely had we rolled over trying to get more comfortable, than steaming streams of hot water began to squirt over us. The Man shook an abrasive powder all over us, dribbled oil on the whole mess, then slammed the door and locked it. We were terrified in the utter darkness.

The Man flipped a motor switch and the steel drum began to rotate unmercifully fast. Scraping, grinding, banging, crashing, clod against clod we tumbled! How could we endure such deafening noise and pain and our forced contact with one another. Continual spinning, friction, jabbing, crushing, knocking. How long? How long?

“It takes time,” remarked The Man as He walked away with his friend while our pummeling went on and on...and on.

Much, much later He returned and flipped the switch off. The drum came to a squeaking halt. We were unceremoniously dumped out into a trough outdoors, nearly blinded by the sunlight. The Man turned a powerful spurt of hot water on us from a hose. Dirt poured away in a murky stream.Would our ordeal never end?

“Beautiful! Marvelous! Exquisite!” exclaimed The Man’s friend.

Breathless and dazed, we lay there stunned until we realized that he was talking about us. We looked at each other and gasped with disbelief. Each was different from the other—sparkling, brilliant and clean! We had been transformed from earthy clods to gems!

The Man lifted one of us in His palm. “Look,” He spoke with delight. “I can see My reflection on the surface of this one!”

He explained to His friend, “I can't polish one clod by itself to this perfection.  It takes the friction of many clods against each other, together with Oil, abrasive, time, and lots of hot water to get this marvelous result.”
******

From THE RESOURCE BOOK

1 John 3:2
“Beloved, now are we children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, 
we shall be like Him, 
because we shall see Him just as He is.”

No comments: