Beautiful Shafts of Broken Light

    In our purest form we are light; in our purest, we are soul.

     Some ascribe a soul to everything. Maybe it is so, but if the rock, dog, or shell harbors a soul, I do not think they know it, at least not yet. Their potential waits.

    The shell, rock, and dog are for here and now, for us. Their presence reminds: Life is tender. Souls are tender. Handle with care. Look deeper. 

    They are hiding stories. Their beauty beckons us to seek and find, to look for the soul behind, beneath, and within. Each, like the books on the shelf, say, “Choose me, and I'll give you a glimpse of my story, and your soul.”

    The shell escaping the sea dazzles you and me. She has seen both the depths of the sea and tasted the lashing storm. She's been a home, for something – someone.“Be a home,” she says. Cradle her in your hand and she talks. She's been larger, now is smaller. Carved away by time, salt, sea, and abrasion. “Small is okay,” she whispers. “Small sparkles.”

    The dog snapping ferociously terrifies you and I. He's seen the back of a large hand, and cracked at the force. Fear once streamed from him, and he once quailed at ugly rebukes, but no more. His heart broke, cracked open, and roars his story. It echoes off the walls of the world. “I will terrify you first,” he roars. “I will be beaten no longer, but do the beating.” His soul groans not for release, but renewal. Once opalescent puppy eyes for someone, ovals of love, now he makes my soul constrict. My soul fills with anger; I pray for renewal.

    The rock, lying at feet, keeps her precious gems hidden, only in splitting her open will she release beauty. She cares not whether you seek her secrets, or let her lie quietly among the grasses. She is content to be the boy's treasure, or the chipmunk's resting place. She is happy to be pocketed, traveling far, or lying still. She knows what's within her. She waits for the one who comes with keen eye. “Look for the beauty within the mundane,” she says.

    Shells, dogs, and rocks speak. Even if they do not yet have a soul, one day they may, but they remind me of my soul, and of the other's soul. Surely the world is full of gleaming, broken, and hidden souls.

    We are soul. We are one. We come from the One True Soul, the Great Light. We arrive gleaming, become broken, and go into hiding. Treasures, us all. We are beautiful shafts of broken light. In embracing brokenness, we embrace each other. 

    Fusing broken shafts of soul light, fusing our light, bit by broken bit, we shine. Together.