Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Great Losers



I have a confession. I am a scavenger.

I just can't seem to walk past a smidgen of interesting brokenness or discarded story. I am so moved by outsider and found art because deep in my heart I long to be a mosaic artist. I have not yet begun to piece together those precious bits and fragments pocketed along my journey.

As Keith and I were walking to church Sunday he bent to pick up a bright piece of turquoise "glass" at the curb. I exclaimed "Don't! It's not glass, it's a discarded cough drop! I only know because I picked it up yesterday and it was sticky..."

Redemption resides deeply in both of us.

We spend hours at the shore with our noses down hoping to find precious bits of pottery or beach glass worn smooth by sand and waves. All the diamonds in the world don't mean as much to me as a tiny little shard of blue and white pottery or a heart shaped rock found by a loved one.

That is why this quote touched me so deeply. I long to be the kind of friend who gathers great treasure and wisdom by carefully listening and fixing those pieces in my heart.

Fragments scavenged from Bob at The Corner:

Every hour’s talk we have with a friend leaves fragments that we ought to gather up and keep to feed our heart’s hunger or the hunger of others’ hearts, as we go on. When we hear good words spoken or read a good book, we should gather up the fragments of knowledge, the suggestions of helpful thoughts, the broken pieces, and fix them in our hearts for use in our lives. We allow large values of the good things we hear or read to turn to waste continually because we are poor listeners or do not try to keep what we hear. We let the broken pieces be lost and thereby are great losers. If only we would gather up and keep all the good things that come to us through conversations and through reading, we would soon have great treasures of knowledge and wisdom.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Had to laugh at you both picking up the cough drop!! :)

Len said...

We loved searching for sea glass when we lived a mile from the beach in CT. Good memories and good story.

Kel said...

eeew! that's a yucky funny story about the cough drop
love that weathered glass you have collected

Heidi Renee said...

mark - isn't that hysterical!?!? it was so bright and clear sitting there - calling our names somehow... :)

len - i don't know that i'll ever be able to move away from the ocean - unless of course it was to another one! connecticut to texas is definite culture shock!

oh kel, i have it by the bucketful - we have found some beaches here that have NEVER been picked before. the four of us can spend an hour or two and each come back with bag fulls. we've had to get really picky now because we've run out of room for it! :D