3-18-21 Treasures Under Foot

In the city in which I was raised we had a huge old train station.  Walking inside of it was always magical.  Throngs of people.  The hustle-bustle of life.  The questions: where are they all going and where are they coming from?

One day in the near dark conditions a person noticed a boarded up area that turned out to be  a very small storage crypt hewn into the rock foundation beneath the structures of the building that didn’t show up on any plans.  Inside this vault was a sealed mysterious box with a big stone in it.  Embedded in the stone were the remains of a pair of  creatures — an ancestral sub-grouping of now extinct horse predecessors.  The artifact was put on full display on one of the walls of the newly renovated train station.  I was amazed.  Where were these creatures coming from and where were they going in this moment of final repose?  Remains of ancient life, buried in darkness, now out in the sunlight for all to witness!  A child and mother?  A mother looking upward reaching for something?  A child calling for its mother?  They were feeling things in THIS dynamic moment.  What were the last things they both ever saw – each other?  Where were they going together and where did they come from?  A fixed lensing as a fossil depicting movements and life.  The dance of life reflected in the final moments of ancient creatures.

Beneath our footings & foundations structuring our lives and below the surface of our current attention or presumed alertness there’s always so much more;  the wisdom and stories of older generations glossed over relegated to  shadows in our memory; children’s accounting of things discounted by adults all too quickly & easily;  richness covered over by layers of emotions about certain others; and creating “types” of persons used as lenses to fix their image in our minds that are placed in the sidebars — marked & relegated.  Affixed to our current moment’s dramas we miss the layered sounds, stories, and substance of those around us still echoing, but without our listening ear. What about our missed moments for reflection: Did I really hear what that person was trying to convey?  What have I learned today?  Am I as loving as I assume I am?

The depths  of life’s wells of experience can be unlocked, inner seemingly sealed boxes opened, content of surprising stuff can be unfurled.  Stop.  Listen.  Dig a little deeper.  Discover.  Life unfolds it’s riches beneath many surfaces.  Luke Chapter 6: a person “dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock.”  Oh the layers of life yet to be discovered in the rock – our terra firma!

Curt