Simple Treasures

The other day I stepped into my teenage son’s room and found a simple life lesson up on his windowsill. There, so carefully arranged, were a dozen or so rocks of varying size, shape, color and texture. Each one had its own reason for being brought into this young man’s treasured collection. I picked up a few and admired their noticeable beauty and commented on his good fortune to have found such gems. They were not polished or faceted to be enhanced in any way. They remained raw and natural as they were when picked up from a rocky shore or mountain trail. Simply, they were rocks and his genuine appreciation for their unique and simple qualities brought a smile to my face. I love the lesson of simplicity these treasures have brought into his life. Let me explain.

Since my boys could walk we’d spend hours looking for treasures just below our feet. Everywhere we journeyed we’d look for rocks. Well, they are not hard to find, after all, they are literally everywhere. So, why do we look for rocks you ask? We look for rocks because they are beautiful and God did not make any two the same. Just like the people in this world each has its own look and each one holds its own beauty. It is just a matter of discovering their unique qualities.

What I might search for in the perfect rock, most likely is not what you would want. We have searched for the perfect round rock, heart shaped rock, flat rock, textured rock, and the list goes on. We’ve never found perfection, but we have come close. I actually found a rock in the shape of a fish in the mighty Colorado River. It has a mouth, dorsal fin and an eye in all the right places. And just inches away from the fish rock a light grey rock with a perfectly formed black heart in it’s center was discovered.  I also have a beautiful white heart rock that was retreived from the ocean floor by this same son when he first learned to scuba dive.  How interesting that he would be looking at rocks when most would be looking at fish.  Now all of these rocks remain with my treasures of varying kinds in my curio cabinet.

So, we collect things that many may look at as having no value. But truly the value lies not in the items themselves, but rather in what the process to acquire them has done in molding us.  Just as the tumbled rock loses its rough edges when tumbled long enough by the rough waters of a river we too can be refined by constant movement in our lives.  Yet we, as well, can benefit from times when we are not in motion,  times of reflection and peace.

I have a son who savors things in life because he has had those moments of pause that have brought him times of reflection and refinement that most just walk on by and would not notice.  He sees value in the common, familiar, and in many people’s eyes, the worthless things around us. This young man would rather hold something of nature than crafted by a machine. He has learned to recognize beauty in all things. In a sense, his eyes are wide open and simplicity has made him free.

In Others’ Words:

I have learned by some experience, by many examples, and by the writings of countless others before me, also occupied in the search, that certain environments, certain modes of life, certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.

~ Ann Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)~