Clay Balls

I received this story in e-mail yesterday. It reminded me of the clay balls I had made but still hadn't put out for someone to find. When I've made these balls, I've experimented with putting things into them. I tried making a small dove from clay to put inside but it crumbled in the second firing. I was successful with putting in a few stones that make the ball rattle. Now I'm thinking my next experiment will be to put in stones I have tumbled that are polished and shiney. I think I'll also shorten this story and put it on a scroll and slip it inside the ball after all the firings have been done.

Here's the story that was sent to me....

Clay Balls


A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found
a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone
had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.

They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the
bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would
throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he
could.

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and
it cracked open on a ! rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each
contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of
jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him.

He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of
the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead
of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of
thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves,
and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the
outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or
stylish or well known or wealthy But we have not taken the time to find
the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and! every one of us. If we take the time to
get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the
way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant
gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown
away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of
clay.

May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with each of you. Thank
you for looking beyond my clay vessel.

Getting out there

I finally left another piece of my pottery work. I left the piece below that looks like a large acorn or mushroom. I left it in a waiting room in a building on Schuetz Rd. where I had dropped off and waited for a friend of mine. I put a card about Found Art underneath the piece. I hope someone picks it up to look at it and realizes that it is not a decoration and is meant to be taken home.