A few months ago, there was a fire in the restaurant next door to my apartment.

That was the day I learned that, at the threat of my cat being in a burning building, this fat girl can, and will, run.

I also learned what my most prized possession is. 

They say that whatever you try to save first when your house is on fire is your prized possession; I’ve been [un]lucky enough to learn what that is for me.

I ran inside, flew up the stairs, and grabbed:

My Cat.

My purse.

My crumpled vase.

That was it. The apartment was filling up with haze from the smoke, so I threw the cat in the stroller, tossed my vase and my purse in the stroller basket, and got the hell out of there.

It ended up being fine — I was out of my apartment for a few days while it aired out and I got the soot off of everything in the back room and bathroom, but all my stuff survived.

We were very, very lucky.

I put the vase back on the bookshelf near my bed, and we went on with our lives.

This past Sunday, I needed to get some altar flowers for the church I attend, so I did what I always do when I have to get altar flowers for the church — I grabbed my vase and headed for the florist, where I bought the same flowers I always buy: 10 sunflower stems.

The florist arranged them in my vase, put them in a box, and commented that it was such an interesting vase, and seemed so perfectly suited to holding those particular flowers.

I just smiled, agreed, and thanked her.

Sunday came and went, and now the vase of sunflowers is sitting on the bookshelf in my office, where I can enjoy them all day as I work.

A woman came in for a meeting this morning, saw them, saw the unusual vase, and commented that it was one of the most unusually beautiful pieces of pottery she’d seen in a long time.

Again, I just smiled, agreed, and thanked her.

She left my office, and I sat there, staring at the vase full of flowers, and smiled, thinking back to the day, almost 10 years ago, when I first happened upon it.

It had been a rough week.

A rough month.

A rough couple of years, If I really wanted to be honest with myself.

I was a pastor who felt increasingly dissatisfied with her life, her church, her theology, her job, her…everything.

I couldn’t stop getting into trouble with church superiors.

Couldn’t follow the rules closely enough.

Couldn’t conform quickly enough.

Couldn’t keep my opinions to myself.

Couldn’t fit their mold.

I was truly starting to feel broken – like there was something fundamentally wrong with me. This feeling only strengthened when, during my annual performance appraisal, my Divisional Commanding officer referenced the biblical story of the potter and the clay, saying that, like a defective pot on a wheel that needed to be crumpled and reformed to the will of the potter,  I needed to be remolded by Christ and the church.

Ouch.

Ever been compared to an artist’s fuck up? I have…..

It doesn’t feel great, lemme tell ya.

So I was in a pretty low place, and had been for a while, when I decided to pack a lunch and take a drive down to Gettysburg for the day.  I didn’t really have a plan, just wanted to get out of my own head for an afternoon, so off I drove.

Just as I hit the outskirts of Gettysburg, I started to see these weird bicycles all alongside the edge of the highway. They were mostly vintage, and after the first few, they started holding these ‘Burma-shave’ style signs, all hand painted in a messy, slightly wonky, way.

Amused, I kept reading them, and they eventually led me to an exit, and then to a house with a LOT of pottery outside.

The Lion Potter of Gettysburg.

That’s what the hand-painted sign on the lawn said.

Gallery inside.

Intrigued by the ware I saw outside, I ventured into the house, which really was a gallery filled with some of the most interesting, unusual pottery I’d ever seen.

All gorgeous.

All WAY out of my price range.

I slowly made my way through the downstairs, appreciating the work, and wondering why I was alone in the place, when I came into one of the front rooms.

This room was clearly the showpiece of the entire shop.

The most intricate, beautiful, expensive works sat on display, carefully curated, clustered by style or series.

And then I saw it.

At first I was shocked.

Then confused.

Then shocked again.

And then, a light bulb went off and I started to cry.

Sitting on a pedestal, all alone, behind glass, was a single green vase.

With a price tag of $5,000.

At first glance, I was shocked, and thought it must be a joke.

Sitting in the center of this room filled with gorgeous pieces was a nondescript, green earthenware vase that had clearly partially collapsed while being thrown.

The front was caved in and creased, the mouth of the vase tipped forward, and had pulled into a narrow oval, instead of a perfect, upward circle at the top of a smooth vessel.

It was a giant reject.

Garbage.

A fail.

And yet there it was, under glass, like it was something special.

It certainly did not belong in this room full of masterworks.

I looked at the the tag, and it read simply,

$5,000.00

THE HELL?????

I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t crumpled it the rest of the way, re-wedged it, and tried again.

Why take the time to glaze something like that, and then put it on display like it was just fine?

I stood there, trying to understand, when something came over me – something I didn’t even have words for.

I started to weep.

The longer I stood looking at that vase, the harder I cried.

That vase was speaking to me.

I wasn’t entirely sure why, but the thought that the artist would take the time to glaze something that most everyone would call a fail….and not only glaze it, but put it in a room with his masterworks….struck a nerve, and I stood there, silently sobbing, slightly envious of the love that this piece of crap had been shown by the artist.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

Startled, I turned around, and came face to face with a man that I knew, immediately, must be the Lion Potter himself.

He simply stood there

not moving

his dark skin smeared with dried clay

his full, partially dreadlocked hair framing his face like…..well….like the mane of a majestic lion.

Finally, he spoke.

“You found my vase.”

“yes” I replied

“It speaks to you.”

“yes” I nodded, “but why? Why didn’t you fix it? Why did you finish it crumpled like that?”

He didn’t say a word, but walked past me to the pedestal, unlocked the glass, and lovingly removed the vase.

Handing it to me, he said gently, “why wouldn’t I leave it the way it is?”

I didn’t understand.

“But….it’s…..crumpled…..it’s caved in…and the mouth….”

He smiled and took it back from me, turned, and started to walk out of the room.

Just as he reached the doorway, he turned to me.

“Come with me.”

We went into the small kitchen at the back of the house. It was full of flowers.

“My wife loves flowers,” he smiled.

Taking the vase to the sink, he turned on the tap, filled it with water, and set it on the table in front of me.

“It holds water, just as a vase should.”

I said nothing.

He took a handful of roses out of their vase and gently put them in the crumpled vase.

They looked awful.

The mouth of the vase faced forward, so the roses sat at a funny angle, their stems straining to meet the curvature. The arrangement was lopsided, elongated, like the mouth of the vase.

I didn’t realize it, but i made a face.

“Are roses the only flower?”

What?

“No, of course not…. but look at how wonky it looks….”

Silently, he took the roses out of the vase, returned them to the perfectly circular, symmetrical vase they had come from, and looked back at me.

I had no idea what he was trying to get at, so I looked away.

Just as quietly, he went outside, leaving me alone in the kitchen with the crumpled vase.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I stood there, even more confused, waiting.

After a few moments, he came back – with an armful of sunflowers and a pair of garden shears. I watched as he trimmed the stems, tapping them on the table and evening up the heads to the same height.

He took the vase, put the sunflowers in, made a few adjustments, and spun the vase back toward me.

My mouth dropped open.

It. Was. BEAUTIFUL.

I started to cry again.

The Lion Potter’s kind eyes twinkled, and he smiled a gentle smile.

“Why force yourself to hold roses, when you are perfectly suited for holding sunflowers? This vase is not ruined because it doesn’t look like the others or hold roses like the others. It’s perfect. Just as it is.  It tips forward just like the heads of these flowers. Any other vase, and they would not be as vibrant. Why would I destroy something with such a gift to give?”

I stood there, crying.

Finally, I got it together enough to ask him if I could take a photo of the sunflowers in the vase, to remind myself of his lesson, and of the beautiful, crumpled vase.

Smiling, he picked it up and placed it in my hands.

“But it’s $5,000….I don’t have anywhere near that kind of money…..”

“It was never really for sale, my dear. I was simply waiting for someone to connect with it, to understand it…..to NEED it. That person is you. It is yours.”

As the tears streamed down my face, I stood there in the kitchen, clutching that beautiful, crumpled vase full of flowers, thinking about the words of my commanding officer about needing to be remade because of what he perceived as fundamental flaws, and for the first time in my life, I began to think that maybe, just MAYBE, I wasn’t supposed to hold roses after all…..

Maybe I was made to hold sunflowers instead.