Gem cutters get close. They begin with raw material: rough rock-bits from the earth. They’ve been trained in sensing how to recognize potential, what signs to note from the faintest of glimmers. Not everything picked up holds promise, but in the working of the stuff sometimes there is reward. And then they cut. They don’t leave it alone either. They cut again. For it is in the facets where the value multiplies. The light dances, the shadows bend revealing color, and then someone’s breath gasps for the catching of something…

Have you ever noticed how folks sometimes put their hands to their mouths when being overwhelmed? Is it because we just know our outer expression will be paltry in the face of something much grander, or scarier, or livelier?

But I can’t stop trying. This is one of several sketches I’ve worked out recently in an effort to understand and articulate this grander thing going on. The photo images I took in May were only a beginning. Facing some cut rock I felt as if I was at the edge of a very rich mine.

And reading Jesus, I see he even deliberated out loud before his disciples about “how to picture” something which to us is only mystery. He spoke many parables, “figures of the true” that some would catch and others would completely miss. T.S. Eliot said “human kind cannot bear too much reality”