The end cap in a retail store is a place of wonder for me. You know what this is, right? It is the pace at the end of each aisle. Companies pay a premium to get their products on an end cap, because shoppers don’t have to go down an aisle to see them. It is prime real-estate. I was in a store not loo long ago and found myself looking at the end cap in the toy section. There was a sign there that said “classic toys,” and it was filled with toys from many years ago, packaged in the same packaging they used to be in. There were Magic Eight Balls, and a Mr. Potato Head, to name a few. That got me thinking: is there a toy Hall of Fame?
The answer is yes.
There are lots of toys that have made it in, going back decades. Magazines have even ranked toys based on their popularity and their ability to shape our culture. I am sure you have examples you could give of one toy or another that meant a lot to you growing up.
One of the best toys of all time, in my opinion, is Play Doh. And what is interesting about that is it was originally not a toy at all.
In the 1920s (and before) a lot of people’s houses were heated by coal, which had an unfortunate byproduct from burning. Soot would gather on the walls inside. Play Doh began as a material made to clean the soot off of wallpaper. An entrepreneur name Cleo McVicker struck a deal with Kroger grocery stores to make the stuff, which was just a combination of water, salt, and flour. It was an instant hit with people and kept McVicker’s company going for another 20 years. The white, putty-like substance could be rolled on the walls and would gather all of the soot and dirt.
In the 1950s though people moved away from coal and used oil and gas to heat their homes. So they didn’t need to clean the walls like they used to. Cleo’s son Joseph was the head of the business by then, and his sister-in-law, Kay Zufall, suggested using the stuff as a toy instead. Kay was a teacher and won Joseph over on the idea when he came to school to see the clay designs that the kids were making. Joseph went back to the factory and started marketing the stuff as a toy from that moment on. He added coloring to the mix and soon you could get it in white, red, yellow, and blue. There are more than 50 colors now. Hasbro owns it and has actually trademarked the scent of it. Play Doh was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame (Rochester NY) in 1998. Kids have played with more than 700 million pounds of it.
Play Doh is fun and even therapeutic. It can relax kids and promote their creativity. The best thing about it to me is this: There are no real mistakes with this toy. What happens if you try to make something with it and it breaks and doesn’t look good? Do you stop and say “Oh well I tried. I guess I have to buy another can of it now?” Of course you don’t. You just reform it and try again. There really isn’t a scenario where you play with it and think, oh I messed that up, guess I can’t continue with this.
Pottery is that way too (isn’t Play Doh just a kids version of pottery?). I recently took a pottery class and had a great time trying to make bowls and plates. Sometimes I created something that actually resembled what I was trying to make, but that wasn’t always guaranteed. But just like the toy version, if you didn’t get what you wanted you could always try again.
The book of Jeremiah has probably the best known verses about pottery in the bible.
Jeremiah 18:1-10
18 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
What is the message here? One message is that God can shape people like the potter shapes clay. But what about people shaping themselves? If you dig a little deeper into this passage you might find something else that is communicated: people can change. You have the God-given ability to change yourself. If we don’t like who we are becoming we have the power to turn our lives into something else.
Maybe God is saying “Get yourself together or I will do it for you.”
There is another interesting thing about pottery. Things are not set until you want them to be. The clay doesn’t become hard until it is fired in a kiln. But you only put the pottery in the kiln when you are satisfied with it.
But what about broken pottery, after the fire? Is all lost then? Not at all. The Japanese have a term called “kintsugi.” It is the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the broken parts with a special type of lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum powder. This calls attention to the break rather than trying to mend it in such as way as to make the crack invisible. This is a completely different way of looking at things. What is the symbolism for us? Instead of trying to erase the break, we accept that fact that it is part of who we are. We make it into something that makes us better and more valuable because of what we had to deal with.
We can always change. We can always get better. And we can always use our past struggles to make our present selves the best we can be.
God Bles