Cracking
the door of a ceramic kiln is a moment of high expectation, anxiety and
joy.
A potter
works for days, if not months, to form and glaze the work that will fill a
kiln. Learning how to do such a process
can take a lifetime or the rookie frenzy of a "Pottery 101"
class. Novice or master, for the potter,
opening a kiln, gas, electric or wood for that matter, big or small, is a
moment of transcendent surprise.
Now, one
would expect such romantic projections from a 40 year pastor-potter. I tend to find the "spiritual" in
just about anything and unapologetically confess that I am looking for it. With that kind of presupposition any
conclusion of mine is biased. Yet upon
opening "The Flying Z" wood burning, Tamba kiln of Dick Mackey at
Canyon Creek Pottery in Northern California I sensed "something more
than..."
There was
something more there than the results of 40 hours of stoking, wood chopping and
air-to-fuel-to-heat ratio adjustments by three life-long potter-friends. There was something more than the hard and
heavy labor it takes to prepare the kiln, its shelves and fuel before even lighting
a match. There was something more to
discover on the initial view of the pots, mugs, bowls and jars that glistened
in the heat as we opened the first section of the main door.
An
engineer would deconstruct the chemical interaction of the clay and glaze
properties as they interacted with heat and time that results in
'such-and-such' effect on a piece...or not.
A chemist could explain why metallic crystals are formed in the surface
of the glassy silica under such conditions as oxidation and reduction in a kiln
environment. A novice potter could
describe to a visitor the general process that results in a small work of
functional art out of a lump of clay.
But none of that information... knowledge...truth.... really begins to
express what one sees as they open the door of a kiln for the first time.
There is
"something more than" at work.
There is a transformation in the fire that goes beyond mere rationality
and logic, although both have directly contributed to the process from the
start. All of the varying inputs made to
that moment, or that one single piece of pottery, can't explain the
transcendent creativity of the fire.
Reducing it to numbers and formula doesn't describe beauty.
The
modern mind has reduced truth to what we can measure and weigh, what we can
reproduce in controlled conditions. As
important as the scientific method is there is "something more than"
at work. That's true of an art process,
a relationship, one's sense of self, whatever. Reducing life to the evolution of the chemical/biological interactions
of self-conscious beings may be completely accurate but it doesn't begin to
define the moments of our living. There
is "something more than" at work.
One can
dismiss such a conclusion as the self-justification of a theologian. But the next time you stand in awe of a
sunset, or the giggle of an infant, or the helping hand of a friend take a
breath and suspend that logic that seeks to limit such moments with what you
and I can understand.
And. Be.
With.