This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
I am as clay
I am as clay
I am as clay in your hand, divine Potter:
prised from the earth;
washed by your stream;
moulded by pressures,
and the touch of your nail-printed hands.
I am as clay in your hand, divine Potter:
proved by your fire,
the kiln of your love;
burnished to wear down the ridges of pride.
I come to you.
Shape me and mould me in love, O Jesus,
shape me and mould me in love.
I am as clay in your hand, divine Potter:
broken I seem;
battered by sin;
dented by incidents;
and shattered to shards by the world,
I am as clay in your hand, divine Potter.
Help me believe
I can be reformed,
you can rework me, give meaning again.
I come to you.
Shape me and mould me in love, O Jesus,
shape me and mould me in love.
Shape me and mould me in love, O Jesus,
shape me and mould me in love.
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2006.
inspired by the poem "A Potter's Prayer" by Rev'd Canon David Sutcliffe,
first published in "Not Out".
Story behind the song
When Rev'd Canon David Sutcliffe, a former vicar of Eccleshill, died, a tribute to him was published on the Bradford Diocesan Web Site (click here), and the tribute included a poem written by him after he took up pottery as a hobby. The theme is of course familiar as the image is used in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah and other places. It occurred to me first to try to set David's words to music - but later I realized this wasn't very satisfactory, and I would do better to write new words first before setting them to a tune. This song is the result.
The theme is used in many songs, but I feel David has been more successful than most in expressing two aspects of the potter-character of God:
- he's included the burnishing of the vessel as part of its production, whereas most songs finish with the moulding and many people imagine the firing completes the process; and
- although the physical clay is hardened beyond reshaping once it has been fired, David is particularly successful at saying that God is not like a human potter and he can rework the clay even after it has been fired: we may later feel we are beyond redemption, but God can even then reshape us and re-form our lives.
For the style of the music, I'm grateful to the memory of a song "Go down to the house of the potter / watch him turn the wheel" (by "The Fisher Folk", based on Jeremiah 18), and the running bass of the piano part is intended to give the same effect.
(Please note the rhythm of verse 2 is slightly different from that of verse 1 - the music below doesn't show verse 2 in its more natural speech-rhythm.)
John Hartley
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.