strong and gentle

I was speaking with friends staying at Blackwater Bluff for a few days of R&R. They had watched me making a pot on the potter's wheel and mentioned that there was a time at the beginning when it took great centredness, strength and concentration to center eight pounds of clay on the wheel and draw it up into a cylinder and then seemed to require gentleness to caress the clay into the subtle shapes of beauty and form which the final result requires.

I mentioned that centerdness, strength and gentleness were required for pottery and he reminded me that for those who live a good life and choose to live out of a center of goodness in this world, that strength and gentleness were as important to the living of human life as to the making of a pot.

Life, in seasons, requires that we live from the center of our faith and life in God; and that when facing darkness of the world's evil, face it with both strength and gentleness from that center. If we do that, good will, in the end, prevail. Though we will rarely be thanked for it.