I was editing a piece of writing the other night. I was happily marking up the paper draft, content to cut and move and erase and deface. But then I opened the actual document on my computer and felt myself hesitating. This was real now. The changes I made now, though not carved in stone, would take it that much closer to the finished product. But it would also be a different product. I was reminded of the passage in Jeremiah where the prophet is directed to the potter’s house.
Jeremiah 18:3-4
3So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
In my writing, I have to surrender my text so it can become something new. I have to risk the passage through the tunnel of change. I have to risk marring the work to reach the final product.
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