Year 736, Early Summer · East Workshop
By Leona Voss
I thought I'd finished the bowls for the workshop meal. Then one of the cooks brought one back with her lunch still in it. She put a spoon beside it and asked me to try getting the last bit out.
That's quite a good way to begin a pottery discussion. We could have spent the morning describing a curve and meant two different things. Instead, I ate some barley. A surprising amount was tucked under the rim.
Our shared kitchen is near the worktables, so people working or learning nearby can have a meal without going home. Neighbors take turns cooking, bring produce, or help wash up. We've still got our own kitchens. Some days I want my own table and a quiet lunch; other days I bring something to share. Nobody has to eat here. But if you're halfway through showing somebody how to lift a wet bowl, it's pleasant to know that a neighbor has put a pot on.
This was to be a larger meal, with room for visiting learners. Some had learned quite different trades before their resurrection. I was born in Paradise, and I like hearing what an ordinary workday used to involve. One sister told me she'd often eaten alone near her work because there wasn't time to go anywhere else. Then she asked where we kept the vegetables. She wanted to help prepare this meal. We found her a place beside someone who knew what was going into the pot.
I'd offered extra serving bowls. I wanted people to pass them comfortably along the table, and I'd spent a fair while making the rims pleasing to touch. The barley suggested there was more work to do. The cook also showed me how she steadied a full bowl against her hip when the serving table was crowded. I'd tested mine empty, with both hands, in a very tidy patch of workshop. Lovely conditions. Not much like lunch.
I widened the opening on the next sample and left more room for fingers underneath. We tried it with food before I made the rest. I kept the first bowl nearby, partly because I know myself. After a successful change, I can remember the original as being rather closer to right than it was.
Philippians 2:4 came to mind while we were doing that—taking an interest in the concerns of others. I'd been interested in the bowl, certainly. Listening to the person carrying it told me something I hadn't learned at the wheel. Jehovah's counsel can reach right into the shape of an ordinary workday. In this case, it changed the shape of the bowl as well.
A young learner asked if her small blue bowl could go on the table too. It leaned a little, though it stood securely. I started to explain how we might straighten the side. She said she liked that part. She wanted help with the foot, which caught when she slid it across the table.
So we looked at the foot. I showed her on my own piece first, and she worked on hers. After firing, we checked it with a spoon and a little food, as the cook had taught me to do. The side still leaned. The bowl worked. She put it among the others, stepped back, and then went closer to make sure she could find it again.
At the meal, people shifted along the benches to make room for the visitors. The sister who'd cut vegetables asked when she could cook with us again. Our young potter watched someone finish a helping from her bowl, and I was glad I hadn't made its straightness the price of a place at the table.
We've been reading 1 Peter 4:9, 10 at home, about hospitality and using our gifts to serve one another. I thought of the cooks, the neighbors making room, and the people who'd patiently taught me my work. I'd brought bowls, but I'd needed to bring a listening ear too.
The learner wanted to wash her own bowl afterward. I dried. She asked if we could make a larger one next time, with the same leaning side. I said we'd see how it carried a full helping first.