Most people know that I work in design at Robert F. Henry Tile here in Montgomery... it's a lot of fun, helping people put together beautiful homes. Sometimes, however, like in any job you get so busy you miss things... like stopping to appreciate beauty, whether it's in the people who surround you at work, or in the physical things that stare you in the eye every minute.
The other day I was looking for something for a client and saw a piece of green stone... passed it by, wrong color. It was a cloudy day, but suddenly the sun came out and illuminated it in a way I hadn't noticed, or perhaps had not taken time to notice.
I stopped and looked at the stone... really looked at it! It occurred to me to wonder about the age of this stone... at least in the millions of years. It is called soapstone, and you may notice that it has beautiful markings of copper in it. The copper isn't just another piece of stone winding its way through the gorgeous green... the copper is actually a fossil... remnants of a plant that lived uncountable eons ago, plants whose leaves used to reach towards the sun, waft in the wind. Something happened... they were covered over, perhaps in a storm, buried in a layer that was the covered by another... and over the years then fossilized, somehow picking up the copper color, forever immortalizing themselves in this rock... rock compressed by many more tons that were laid upon it, until a stonecutter recently freed them from their stone prison, to let us see them again, just in a different way.
How often do we all do this? We are surrounded by amazing things that we just don't take the time to stop and appreciate, whether they be encased in stone, or in the flesh of people around us. Like this stone, these wonderful creatures are molded by forces, like this stone sometimes transformed by cataclysmic upheaval, God taking his time with them, just as he did with this incredible soapstone, that until we take the time to see them in a new light, as I did with the soapstone, we might not really appreciate.
I am a lucky man... at work I have two people who work directly on either side of me who are simply incredible... time has molded them into majestic works! They are patient, kind and loving... we spend more time together than most married people... and the better part? Counterparts just like them work just down the hall... and throughout the building... and taking then taking it further I am surrounded by incredible family, some by blood, some by choice. Then there are others... such as the wonderful woman at Panera who knows just what I like and greets me with a smile when I walk in the door as she creates a wonderful meal just for me. I am engulfed in beauty, whether in stone, a flowering plant on the side of the road, or these wonderful travelers through life standing by my side.
The point here is that while I am surrounded by all of this beauty, sometimes I pass it by without a thought, until by magic, like the day the sun hit this soapstone in just the right way, I am able to see it.
It occurs to me that unless I am more aware of the way that light shows me things, look for that light, whether it illuminates pieces of stone or the people who surround me, just how much I am missing. It's time for me to be more aware of that light, be aware of the need to take a moment to stop and really look... truly look, and be more appreciative, whether at a piece of stone or the beautiful faces and souls of those around me every day.