Sage Conrad unlocked the door to The Wheel before the church bells finished chiming nine. Charleston humidity clung to the air, soft and heavy, carrying the scent of marsh and salt. She welcomed it. Clay behaved better when the air held moisture. People did, too.
She stepped inside her studio and paused, as she always did, to look at the shelves. Rows of bowls, jars, and pitchers—some glazed to brilliance, others cracked and retired to the windowsill where sunlight streamed through their fractures. She had never thrown the broken ones away. Light did beautiful things through broken clay.
When the first knock at the door sounded, she smoothed her curly dark hair, adjusted her glasses, and tied her quilted apron securely around her waist.
“Come on in,” she called to her students. “Class today will focus on wheel throwing.”
Students filtered through the doorway—adults seeking hobbies, teenagers seeking purpose, couples seeking something shared. Sage greeted each with steady warmth. She had learned that people entered studios the way they entered sanctuaries: cautiously hopeful.
In the back of the room, Alfred Odin was already seated at his wheel. His gray hair caught the morning light as he wedged clay with unnecessary force. Sage recognized the rhythm of his frustration before he spoke.
“I just can’t get it right,” Alfie muttered.
She smiled inwardly. Alfie had been wrestling clay—and God—since they were young.
“God bless you, Alfie,” she said gently, crossing to him and brushing a quick kiss against his cheek. As she did, she noticed the familiar outline pressing against his trousers. “Is your rosary still hidden in your pocket?” she asked quietly. “For someone who loves to argue with the Lord, you have a funny way of always carrying a cross.”
He scowled, though she saw the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. The beads slipped partly into view as he slammed the clay onto the wheel head.
At the front of the studio, the hand-carved sign hung above the blackboard. Sage ran her thumb along its grooves. It read: “O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand. Isaiah 64:8.”
She had carved it years ago during a season when her own life had felt violently reshaped. The memory tightened her chest for a moment, then softened.
“The first major question,” she said, turning to her class, “is what will you allow God’s hands to make of your life? Are you workable?” She let her gaze drift—not lingering too long on Alfie. “The second question is what will you make with your own hands? And why?”
A married couple near the shelves exchanged glances. One of the men whispered, “I didn’t know we’d signed up for a church class.”
Sage pretended not to hear. She had long ago accepted that some would bristle before they listened.
“Before we begin,” she announced, clapping once, “we’re going to stand and sing praise. If you don’t know the words to ‘Have Thine Own Way, Lord,’ they’re written on the board. Just sing along.”
The hymn rose unevenly. Some voices were timid, others bold and off-key. From the back, Alfie crooned with theatrical weariness, conducting as though leading a reluctant choir. Sage suppressed a laugh. He masked discomfort with humor; she had always known that.
When they settled, she placed a heavy lump of clay onto her wheel.
“Now,” she said, “today I’m going to teach you the basics. By the time we’re finished, I want to hear what you made and why.”
Her hands pressed firmly as the wheel began to spin. She centered the clay, feeling the wobble resist her palms. Centering required equal pressure on both sides—too little and the clay buckled, too much and it tore. She thought of seasons when she herself had resisted pressure, not understanding that it was saving her from collapse.
“I’m not an artist,” the husband—Wilbur—declared suddenly.
Sage lifted her eyes. There it was again: the lie people told themselves before they even began.
“Your thoughts are mighty strong,” she replied calmly. “If you speak negativity, that’s all you’ll get. You’ve already been at the wheel of your life. How has that been going?”
The teenagers snickered softly. Sage felt the room tilt toward curiosity.
Wilbur cleared his throat. “It’s going better since I walked into your studio this morning,” he said.
Sage inclined her head. “So glad to hear that,” she said.
She lifted the clay slowly, letting it rise between her fingers into the beginnings of a vessel.
“First, you prepare the clay,” she said. “It can’t be too wet or too dry. There can’t be bubbles hidden inside, or it might explode in the furnace.” She let that linger. “God prepares us the same way.”
From behind her, Alfie muttered, “Or bakes you until you crack.”
She did not turn. “Even if clay has been used before,” she continued steadily, “it can be made workable again.” She allowed herself a brief glance toward him. “God is always reworking at His wheel, as it seems good to Him to do.”
As the morning wore on, the studio filled with the soft hum of spinning wheels and the whisper of shaping hands. Sage moved among her students, guiding fingers inward, steadying trembling wrists. She noticed who grew impatient, who leaned in eagerly, who feared collapse. Each person revealed themselves in the clay.
When she reached Alfie again, his bowl leaned crookedly, one side thin and fragile. He stared at it as though it had betrayed him.
“It’s lopsided,” he said.
Sage studied the curve thoughtfully. She saw not failure but tension—too much force on one side, not enough surrender on the other.
“It can be reshaped,” she answered quietly. “If you’re willing to press again.”
He sighed but began kneading the clay back into a mound. She watched his hands—strong hands, capable hands. She had once imagined those hands building a life beside hers. Instead, they had built walls.
“God is going to make something great out of you yet, Alfie,” she said lightly, though her heart carried the weight of it. “He loves you too much to leave you as you are.”
He rolled his eyes. “She’s been in love with me since we were teenagers,” he called to the class, attempting to disrupt the tenderness. “Her vessel has a few cracks.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the room. Sage felt heat rise to her cheeks but refused embarrassment.
“It took a lot of molding,” she replied evenly, “but the Lord brought me this far.”
The class returned to their wheels. By late afternoon, tables were lined with earthen vessels—crooked, sturdy, tentative, bold. Sage explained the firing process: first the kiln, then glazing, then the second firing that sealed color into permanence. She always loved that part—the reminder that transformation was rarely a single event.
As the students gathered their belongings, she gestured toward the cracked pieces on the windowsill.
“Even broken pottery can catch the light,” she said. “Remember that when you look at your finished creation. You are a vessel, too.”
When the door finally closed behind the last of them, the studio settled into silence. Sage remained at her wheel, hands resting on cool clay. The room still carried the echo of hymn verses and hesitant laughter.
Behind her, Alfie’s wheel slowed to a stop. She felt the quiet shift in him—the subtle stillness that sometimes followed resistance. When she turned, she saw the rosary resting in the center of the wheel, the beads catching the last of the afternoon light.
Sage did not speak.
Beyond him, the cracked vessels along the windowsill glowed softly as the sun dipped low, light threading through their fractures. She let her hands rest against the cool clay and watched the wheel, still turning, slow to silence.
Copyright 2023 Jennifer Waters
Pen Jen's Inkwell Podcast version:
“Come on in,” invited Sage Conrad, a renowned potter in Charleston, South Carolina, who was also known for her studio called The Wheel. “Class today will focus on wheel throwing,” she explained as a handful of students entered her studio’s front door on the June morning.
As legend had it, anyone who was a student of Sage’s was sure to experience a miracle, not like a hokey, made-up one, but a deep, mystical encounter that caused the person to change from the inside out. Like most mornings, her longtime friend Alfred Odin sat in the back of the studio, reshaping the clay on his wheel.
“I just can’t get it right,” the gray-haired man moaned. “Sage, I know you think that your new students are here for life lessons, and you have something to teach them, and they have something to teach you. I don’t want to hear it. I really don’t.”
“God bless you, Alfie,” she laughed, kissing him on the cheek. She fixed her curly dark hair and adjusted her glasses as she put on her quilted apron. “Is your rosary still hidden in your pocket? For someone who loves to curse God, you have a funny way of always carrying a cross in your pocket just in case He might be watching you. Will you ever learn?” she asked, shaking her head.
“You don’t have to tell everyone my secrets,” Alfie snapped, slamming the clay onto the center of the wheel head. As his rosary stuck out of his pocket, he used his fingers to open the clay.
Since his bowl was a bit lopsided, he started over again, kneading the clay like dough.
“O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand,” Sage read from the hand-carved sign at the front of her class, quoting Isaiah 64:8. “The first major question is what will you allow God’s hands to make of your life? Are you workable? The second major question is what will you make with your own hands? And why?”
“Jesus help me, I have heard this speech so many times,” Alfie mumbled, reforming the walls of his piece, which was starting to resemble a small, crooked bowl. “Next, she will talk about being a willing vessel for the purposes of the Lord. If I have to hear this one more time . . .”
“Before we begin, we need to stand up and sing praise,” Sage instructed. “Everyone on your feet! If you don’t know the words to ‘Have Thine Own Way, Lord,’ they are on the blackboard. Just sing along, even if you don’t know the tune,” she gestured, pointing to four verses of lyrics.
“Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way; Thou art the Potter, I am the clay,” Alfie crooned, wearily conducting from the back of the room as the class sang off- key. He stammered under his breath: “My favorite song of all time.”
“Now, today, I am going to teach you the basics of making pottery on a wheel,” Sage announced to the students as they sat down. Several broken and cracked pieces of pottery sat on a windowsill at the front of the class as light shone through them. “By the time we are finished, I want to hear what you made and why. I’m hoping that you are an open and willing vessel for the Lord, even with your cracks. There’s nothing better that you could be in the whole wide world!”
“I didn’t know that we had signed up for a church class,” one of the adult students whispered.
“Hush, Wilbur, she’s the best potter in the state,” his wife, Minerva, insisted. “Look at her pottery on the shelves, even the broken ones are magnificent. I’ve never seen such beautiful and elegant pieces.”
Meanwhile, a group of teenagers were taking notes, wanting to mold their clay into greatness.
“I think she’s making a lot of good points,” one of the girls whispered to the others.
“I’m doing this for you, Minerva, because I love you,” Wilbur stated, making the teenagers giggle. His wife shook her head. “I’m not an artist.”
“Did I hear you say that you’re not an artist?” Sage eavesdropped.
"Yes, ma'am," Wilbur stated. "Art is not for everyone."
“Your thoughts are mighty strong, and if you speak negativity, that’s all you’ll get. You are an artist. You’ve already been at the wheel of your life. How’s it been going?”
“His mistake,” Alfie sighed, rolling his eyes. “He should’ve known better than to argue!”
“It’s going even better since I walked into your studio this morning,” Wilbur assured Sage.
“So glad to hear that! The first thing you’re going to learn is his how to take a lump of clay and make it into a ball,” Sage taught. “First, you must prepare the clay, just like God prepares you.”
“God prepares you,” Alfie quipped, giving up for the morning. “The clay can’t be too wet or too dry, and you can’t have bubbles, or you might explode when He bakes you in the furnace.”
“Even if the clay has been used before, it can be made workable again,” Sage nodded at Alfie. “God is always working and reworking at His wheel, as it seems good for Him to do.”
Much of the class listened to Sage in awe, realizing that she had a higher awareness than most of them during their daily lives, yet it seemed they were soft enough to be molded by her.
“God is going to make something great out of you yet, Alfie,” Sage joked, looking at his latest creation with a critical eye. “He might have to break you first, if you won’t bend, but He will get his way. He loves you too much to leave you in your current condition, and so do I.”
“She’s been in love with me since we were teenagers,” Alfie blurted, interrupting her class on the way out the door. “She could never admit how much she loved me. Her vessel has a few cracks!”
“It took a lot of molding, but the Lord brought me this far, didn’t He Alfie?” Sage smiled, sitting down in front of a treadle wheel to teach the class her techniques firsthand. “On the contrary, Alfie is so stubborn and hard-headed that sometimes he misses the blessing as a crackpot!”
Despite the spat between Sage and Alfie, the students crafted their clay jars with care.
By the end of the day, the pupils had each made some sort of earthen vessel, ready for the first firing of the kiln, and then the glazing, and then firing their handiwork for the second time.
“I receive whoever the Lord sends me,” Sage explained as the students departed for the day. “Now, every time you look at your finished creation, you can remember that you are a willing vessel. What stories I have from students over the years! It has been no greater honor than to be clay in the hands of the Potter. Who knows what miracles you will now experience!”
Copyright 2023 Jennifer Waters
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