"It was You who created my inmost self,
and put me together in my mothers womb.
For all these mysteries I thank you:
for the wonder of myself, for the wonder of Your works."
(psalm 139:13-14)

When I first read this psalm - and it's my favorite - I was struck by the imagery of God deliberately creating 'my inmost self' and I was also grateful for the psalmist adding that this was a mystery.  The longer I lived with the words and imagery, the more I wondered, how do I discover from all the parts of 'my self' what might be the inmost self created by God?

The image chosen for today is of clay being shaped by a potter's hand because clay is not so mysterious to me. When my boys were young we spent many an afternoon with clay and play-dough.  I loved this activity so much I never minded the mess it created as we squished it,  rolled it into 'snakes' to coil into pots, pressed our hands into the lump and created an opening or thumped and pressed it flat so cookie cutters could be used to make shapes.

There is a wondrous feeling attached to playing with clay or play-dough.  Part of the feeling is creativity; I have this lump of possibility just crying to become something.  The other part of the wonder is a sense of power; I can do anything I want with this lump.

Our life, our 'self' is an awfully lot like clay: our potential; the gifts of this inmost being God created are the soft moist lump crying out to be used: to be kneaded, thumped and formed into something. The ability to shape this lump of self gives a sense of power which comes from what theologians refer to as free will or choice.

Free will is the gift God gave us in order that we might truly become artists in our living for creativity requires making choice. However, as most of us are well aware by mid-life, the power of free will and choice also creates mistakes, pain, and doubt. Sometimes by mid-life, the disappointment of our choices causes us to give up being artists and we settle for simply observing life or reducing our living to tasks and a kind of martyred duty.  Often without being aware, we have become passive, we wish for life rather than actively engaging the hope of faith.

Advent, the beginning of a new year of walking spiritually, trumpets hope with the call: 'wake up and begin anew: carry into birthing the life I have put in you."  To quote the prophet Isaiah "do not consider the things of old or the former things, I am doing a new thing; it springs forth, do you not perceiving it?"

Remember my experience seeing the Pieta and being aware that Michelangelo felt the story he was creating so completely that this love and passion was carved into the marble and I could feel the compassionate love still radiating centuries later? If Michelangelo, a human like myself could create a sculpture radiating love from marble, how much more powerful would be God as the sculpting hands of me? What might I become if I allow my living to become the partnership of potter and clay with God?,

Living from this choice requires faith.  Faith that the God who created me did so with love and continues to desire only what love does: that the fullness of life be revealed and lived. "Can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand." (Jeremiah 18:6)

Thinking on this I am reminded of a quote attributed to Michelangelo, who when asked how he was able to create the magnificent forms he sculpted, seemed perplexed by the question and said simply, 'oh, the form is already there, I just remove the excess that hides it."  

God knows the inmost self he created and desires nothing more than my willingness to trust His loving hands to remove the excess baggage of my living. Today as I light my candle, I offer my willingness to believe this truth and ask that obstacles to it's grace be removed so the wonder created by you Oh God, may be revealed and I might live the story entrusted to me.