Where Rough Edges Soften.

Last week I spent some time learning about a part of pottery I had never really understood before—fettling.

Fettling is the process of trimming, smoothing and cleaning up rough edges. It is the work that follows the shaping: removing the unnecessary, softening the sharp places and refining what has already been formed.

As I sat with my piece of clay, I couldn’t help wondering whether fettling is also a metaphor for life.

How often do we become preoccupied with our own rough edges? The parts of ourselves we wish were smoother, kinder, wiser, more patient. We spend so much energy trying to become “finished.”

Perhaps becoming isn’t about perfection at all.

Perhaps it is about allowing ourselves to be gently formed over time a sort of transformation.

During my lesson, Andrew my teacher sat beside me. First he demonstrated. Then, instead of taking over, he gently guided my hand. He showed me how much pressure to apply, when to ease off, when to trust the clay, he talked me though.

Then he stepped back.

He gave me room to learn.

There was something profoundly beautiful about that. His hands were close enough to guide me, but never so close that I couldn’t discover it through my own touch.

It made me wonder if this is how God is in relationship with us.

Not by controlling our movements, but by inviting us to walk beside him.

Over the past decade, I, too, have become a learner again in many ways. Pottery is simply the latest classroom.

One of the unexpected gifts of these years has been discovering that God has been waiting for me in places I never imagined.

While the Christian story remains my home, I have found wisdom in Celtic spirituality and the Mystics, Māori understandings, Buddhist practices of compassion and meditation, contemplative writers and countless ordinary people whose lives have reflected something of the Divine.

For much of my life I assumed that my own tradition held all the lessons I needed.

Now I wonder whether God has always been speaking a language much bigger than any one tradition.

The surprising thing is that these encounters have not diminished my faith. They have deepened it.

Looking back, I realise it wasn’t Christianity that first needed fettling.

It was me.

The rough edges of certainty. My need to have all the answers. The temptation to draw lines around who belongs and who doesn’t. The quiet belief that truth could only be found within the boundaries I had inherited.

Those rough edges have slowly been smoothed—not because I walked away from my faith, but because I found Jesus reflected back to me in unexpected places.

Perhaps I have become gentler, more curious and less afraid of mystery.

Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds has begun to speak differently to me. The servants are eager to pull out everything that looks wrong. But the farmer refuses. He understands that premature certainty can damage the very thing that is growing.

Sometimes our instinct is to fix, remove, correct and tidy everything.

God seems surprisingly patient.

Perhaps there are seasons when the most loving thing is not intervention but accompaniment.

Simply remaining present while growth happens beneath the surface.

The potter does not look at a piece of clay and see only its flaws.

The potter sees what is possible.

Maybe God does too.

The rough edges are not proof that the work has failed.

They are evidence that the work is still unfolding.

Fettling reminds me that transformation is rarely dramatic. It is usually slow, almost imperceptible.

Perhaps the sacred work of fettling isn’t about becoming flawless.

Perhaps it is about becoming softer and more spacious.

More able to recognise God in unexpected places.

We are all, in some way, unfinished vessels—

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