No Two Alike

No Two Alike

Four hundred years ago, the Japanese perfected the art of raku, the ceramic firing technique where a clay piece is painted with glazes containing copper and other minerals and then fired in a kiln at high heat for a short time. In the more modern, Western raku style, once the glazes melt, the white-hot piece is removed from the kiln and placed in a metal can filled with combustible leaves, sawdust, and shredded paper. As these catch fire and blaze, a lid is placed on the container, cutting off oxygen to the fire. The loss of oxygen affects the glazes, resulting in various lusters and a smoky-gray patina where no glaze was applied. Spritzing the heated pieces with water can further affect their final appearance.

Because fire never burns the same way twice, no two raku pieces are alike. And because the elements of heat and oxygen and water are change agents, what goes into the fire often looks, save its original size and shape, nothing like what comes out. Some pieces are stunningly beautiful. Others are rather ordinary. Each is wonderfully unique, particular, and true to itself—just like people.

We come through life’s fires made and remade in the image of God, but no two of us are alike. When I see the grace of well-lived decades, I wish it could be mine, now. When I see the fresh exuberance of youth, I remember it with sharp longing. I see gifts so different from mine—so shiny and fine—that I wish my own were less plain. When I tried my hand at raku, I sometimes wanted other people’s ceramic pots to be my own when they emerged from the fire lovelier than mine. In the same way, I have wished for the shapes and colors and ways of others to become my own. But it was God’s pleasure and joy to make me just as I am and to finish me as he sees fit.

We belong to him, in the fire and smoke and water. The process is his, and so are the results. May he make of us what he will in his good time.

Who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

Romans 9:20-21, NASB