The View from the Shordruck… with a sprinkle of nostalgia

I was musing this morning in Isaiah 45 today and came to…

“Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?”
(Is. 45:9 ASV)

Shards of pottery pile up to become a rick or ruck. So a shordruck is a ruck of shards. Isaiah has quite a line in put-downs. The rulers of the mega-empires, Assyria, Babylon, Persia seemed to be in control of the world. Isaiah, however, regards them as ‘ broken shards ruling over a ruck of broken shards’. ie he is not impressed!

This chapter is a soaring glimpse of the God who rules all things… with his people in mind.

“Rom. 8:28   And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Rom. 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Rom. 8:28–29 (NKJV)

A good antidote for today’s headlines… and tomorrow’s.

I spent my early years surrounded by shordrucks and spoil heaps from the local industries of Burslem in the Potteries of North Staffordshire. My horizon to the South was a 150-yard shordruck, 40 yards deep and stretching backwards for 50 yards. Hundreds of thousands of tons of the detritus and debris from the pottery industry. To the south, across half a mile of derelict land and across a network of working canals and small rail marshalling, the horizon was the silhouette of the Wolstanton Colliery pitheads. To the North a huge 40-foot mound of minerals in the neighbouring marshalling yard.

This daily scene was the ‘adventure playground’ of my early years. So I’m familiar with the chaos of a shordruck, and its basic instability. The powers that provide the background to the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel were impressive. The British Museum has galleries filled with their magnificence. They carried everything before them and were unstoppable.

Isaiah, however, had another perspective. His prophetic eye sees things differently. The emperors, for all their power and splendour, were “broken shards ruling over a shordruck“. The achievements of our race are truly amazing but much of it takes a special perspective to see that it is built on a ‘heap of broken crockery’.

The prophet had glimpsed the Throne of God. That changed his perspective. It will change ours too.

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Is. 6:2 Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. Is. 6:3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. Is. 6:4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Is. 6:1–4 (ASV)

SHARD or SHERD or SHORD Either a faulty piece beyond repair, beyond seconds and beyond lump. Or a broken sliver of a pot.

SHORD RUCK – also SAFF RUCK, SHAFF RUCK, , SHAWDRUCK, SHARD RUCK, SHERD RUCK, SHRAFF RUCK, SHRAFF TIP, SAFF TIP, SAFFER TIP, PITCHER TIP. Rubbish tip containing waste moulds, saggars and faulty ware such as lump or wasters. A heap of broken crockery!

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