A little reflection...

Two things you should know: (1)There's a gate to the university labeled the "Gate of Peace." Ironically, this gate is never open, but instead padlocked. (2) Everywhere you walk in Beer Sheva, and most other places in Israel for that matter, the sidewalks are littered with broken glass.

Gate of Peace

Broken glass shards litter Israeli streets

Reflecting the faces of those walking above.

Ordinary sand destined to be great

Tested and tried, put into the furnace

Shaped by a Master’s hands into something useful yet delicate—

beautiful.

But pressure and carelessness undoes this exquisite work

Shards with sharp edges and hazy memories of what had been—

These are all that remain

Trampled by my foreign feet, rushing about my business

Caught up in my own “completeness” from the same Master’s touch

And forgetting the incredible beauty of mosaics—

diverse pieces of brokenness

united to reflect something bigger than themselves.

Will I risk the my own pain from their sharp edges

In order to pick up these pieces

To lay them before the Master Artist and maybe join in His work?

Or am I more content in the rubble

In front of the padlocked Gate of Peace.