A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of
the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of
hardened clay vessels. It was like someone had rolled
balls of clay and left them out in the sun to bake.
They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man,
so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he
strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls
one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.
He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the
clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a
beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining
clay vessels. Each contained a similar treasure. He
found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or
so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him.
He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown
maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden
treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of
dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of
thousands, but he had just thrown it away!
It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe
even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It
doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't
always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.
We see that person as less important than someone more
beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we
have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden
inside that person.
There is a treasure in each one of us. If we take the
time to get to know that person, then the clay begins
to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine
forth.
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out
that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships
because the gems were hidden in bits of clay.
- Anon
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