28 Oct 09 The Teacup
There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful stores. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially teacups. This was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. One day in this beautiful shop they saw a beautiful teacup.They said, “May we see that? We’ve never seen one quite so beautiful.”
As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke.
“You don’t understand,” it said. “I haven’t always been a teacup. There was a time when I was red and I was clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, ‘let me alone, but he only smiled, ‘Not yet.’
“Then I was placed on a spinning wheel,” the teacup said, “and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. Stop it! I’m getting dizzy! I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, ‘Not yet.’
Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as He shook His head, ‘Not yet.’
Finally the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. ‘There, that’s better,’ I said. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ I cried. He only nodded, ‘Not yet.’
Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening nodding his head saying, ‘Not yet.’
Then I knew there wasn’t any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf. One hour later he handed me a mirror and said, ‘Look at yourself.
And I did. I said, ‘That’s not me; that couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.’ ‘I want you to remember, then,’ he said, ‘I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you’d have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot an disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have had any color in your life. And if I hadn’t put you back in that second oven, you wouldn’t survive for very long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.
Tags: Master, master piece, moulding a maserpiece, teacup
20 Aug 09 Our weakness, His strength
The folklore surrounding Poland’s famous concert pianist and prime minister, Ignace Paderewski, includes this story: A mother, wishing to encourage her young son’s progress at the piano bought tickets for a Paderewski performance. When the night arrived, they found their seats near the front of the hall and eyed the majestic Steinway waiting on the stage.
Soon the mother found a friend to talk to, and the boy slipped away. When 8pm arrived, the spotlights came on, the audience quieted, and only then did they notice the boy up on the bench, innocently picking out, “Twinkle, twinkle little star.”
His mother gasped, but before she could retrieve her son, the master appeared on the stage and quickly moved to the keyboard. “Don’t quit – keep playing,” he whispered to the boy. Leaning over, the master reached down with his left hand and began filling in the bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side, encircling the child, to add a running obligato. Together, the old master and the young novice held the crowd mesmerized.
In our lives, unpolished though they may be, it is the Master who surrounds us and whispers in our ear, time and time again,”Don’t quit, keep playing.” And as we do,he augments and supplements until a work of amazing beauty is created.
