Rolling the Stone

 

There are stones we put in our pockets to remind us of where our life has turned, as well as of the times it has surprised us. “Well, today was certainly a Stone to remember!”

 

There are question stones that we hold in our hands, turn them over, and ponder the what ifs, the maybes, the perhaps. 

 

When someone dies, Caroline Fish says, grief can feel heavy, like a boulder, and at other times it seems more like a pebble, a pebble that we will carry with us always.

 

The events and people in our life are stones on a cord of mystery that circles around. We build stone altars and pile rocks in cairns to honor our dead. Stones of faith and devotion.

 

We arrange stones to express our yearning to connect to the eternal. It’s an old desire. Ancient people built Stonehenge, Avebury, the Ring of Brodgar, and the Callanish Stones to calm their fears of the unknown, and to entice the radiant light out of the darkness and gloom.

 

Hikers leave small stacks of stones to help those who will come later follow the invisible trail over bare stone.  

 

We drop stones like breadcrumbs throughout our life to mark where we’ve been, in case we forget. And we skip stones across the ice on a frozen lake that echoes with the song depths of the cosmos.

 

Stones remind us of our values that do not change. Stones of trust. 

 

Ruth and Bianca Stone poetry. The David Stone String Quartet. Stones of art.

 

We can sip a Stone of Scone Scotch Ale, although that would lead us down the path of a different metaphor, although that, too, would be good, because metaphors are hearty. And yet, metaphors are not the meaning. They are the doorways.

 

We live on the third stone from the sun, a planet with a molten core, a living earth. Even a stone valley made of granite like Yosemite keeps changing its face as it shifts its bones over time.

 

A stone is what it is today, nothing more and, certainly, nothing less. It is neither what it was in the past nor what it will be in the future. Neither are we. Stones of transformation.

 

When we lose someone, as we roll away the stone of grief. Our sorrow and hope become part of the stone soup of community.

 

May we be as wise, as brave, and as curious as a stone.