The Ceramic Legacy

The oldest technologies are often the best, simply because they were the first. Clay and brick, cement and concrete, porcelain, superconductors, pottery, tiles — these are the ceramic legacy. As I was reminded last night while reading the fourth chapter of the second epistle to the Isthmus, I am a jar of clay.

My legacy, therefore, is one of storage and structure, protection and placement, resistance and refraction. I keep an eternal glory inside, and like any well-made vessel, as long as I am sealed, the pressure within me must perforce exceed the pressure without.

This then is why I am hard-pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. I have a ceramic legacy that will not rust, and being well-made, will not break under the natural conditions of use.

There is a corollary to that, though. Some day, I will be poured out. The light of what is within me will be released. The ceramic vessel will be emptied. And containing nothing more, it will only thereafter be of ceremonial use.