2 Drunks and an Epiphany

There was a certain potter, who made a humble living sculpting clay pots, dishes, and other vessels but he felt as empty as the painted vases displayed in the courtyard of his brown adobe house. Lately, his thoughts were occupied by impending doom and the afterlife so the dismayed potter sought after the priest, Padre Agustin, who was an alcoholic. They spoke of nonsense as they drank, how awful the local futbol club was playing, how Doña Alma hadn't aged a day, and how lazy the hired hands were; but once the sobriety left them, the walls of superficiality crumbled like a De La Rosa marzipan out of the wrapper.

"I am afraid, Padre," confessed Juan Pablo the potter, "that I will die a young man who will leave nothing behind but empty pots. If I were to drink myself to death tonight, no one would care."

"I would care, Juan Pablo," said the priest solemnly, "because you would have finished all the tequila without leaving me a drop." They laughed heartily and filled their cups as if it were lemonade on a hot summer day. "I know what you are going through, my friend. I went through the same thing before becoming a priest."

"Are you saying I should become a priest?" Juan Pablo spat.

"GOD NO!" They both sighed a heavy relief. "You are searching for a purpose beyond the ordinary everyday grind. You wake up, you work, you sleep and start over again but feel like something is missing."

"Yes, Father! But what should I do?"

"Hell if I know! That's why I'm an alcoholic but I am seeking purpose and fulfillment here in the church," the priest chuckled as Juan Pablo punched his arm playfully. "Isn't there anything you've always wanted to do? When you were a kid did you always want to be a potter?"

"Kind of," Juan Pablo dug into the recesses of his inebriated mind where he had buried his hopes, dreams, and ambitions under the hard soil of responsibility. "I always wanted to make stuff with my hands and pottery gave me a chance to do that, but I wanted to make sculptures, you know?"

"Sculptures?" puzzled the priest. "Like Michelangelo?"

"Yes, but my father always told me art was useless so if I was going to make something, I should make things people would buy like pots and pitchers and pans. Now I am surrounded by useful items that aren't being used and I feel useless."

"So why don't you sculpt a statue?"

"No," the potter shook his head twisting his lips disapprovingly. "No, I would rather not find out that I am no good."

"Who says you will be no good?" Asked the wise priest with a hiccup. "I am sure you were no master potter when you first handled your clay on the wheel. Try it and fail but you will never succeed if you don't try."

Juan Pablo felt the spark of life flicker in his soul like the first scrape of a match before igniting a desire to pursue a long-lost dream. That night he was too drunk to do anything but wobble home safely without shattering his pottery on the way down. The next morning, he resolved to "set free the angel hidden within the marble" as Michelangelo would say. He set the large lump of clay on the wheel and began the intimate dance between the potter and the spinning clay as it morphed into different shapes and sizes. Sculpting is a violent process full of aggression but also calculated gentleness and caution. To rush would be to kill the creation before it had a chance to live.

It was a process that lasted several arduous days full of doubt and insecurity, yet he felt a sense of pride in finishing this passion project. The sense of pride burned out as quickly as a small match blown out by the rushing wind of humiliation. This is what Juan Pablo feared most of all, putting out the labor of his heart and soul for all to see and mock and ridicule...or perhaps applaud it. He did not care when people did not buy his pottery or if they insult them because he felt nothing but the obligation to his work; however, this sculpture was the very essence of his being. To dismiss his sculpture would be to dismiss him at the core of who he was. What else was there left for him to do? Hide it and keep it for himself, safe from criticism or failure. That is not art, it is hypocrisy. Juan Pablo said to himself, "Be a man, and reveal yourself to the world."