Reflection of God

A friend and colleague recommended a text. The author Mircea Eliade, a Romanian, write about the parallels of the spiritual and the natural. He makes one think when he talks about how people will select a holy rock from among thousands. I have always struggled with the symbol versus the actual representation of the divine in the natural. Eliade uses the terms sacred and profane. The cross symbolizes the death of Christ for our sins, yet does the particular cross he died on have any significance? If I made a cross, is it any less sacred. The physical objects give us meaning in this world. I always feel silly for trying to take rocks and have them mean something. I do not know why, but in 1984 I picked up three rocks from the Puget Sound as a dedication to God. I have completely lost the reason I did it. I do know I felt a severe conflict between what I perceived my calling from God was and how life turned out. I just went looking to see if I still had them. I think that I tossed them out because my modern thinking tells me they are just a bunch of rocks and have no value. It is not rational to attribute something spiritual to something natural.
    When I was in Arizona mourning my mom's departure to heaven, I picked up a rock. I brought it home and threw it in with the white rocks of our rose bush. I attach memory to a rock, but do not attribute a reflection of the supernatural to it. This whole concept has turned my world upside down. I wonder if there is any merit to this universe as a prototype of the heavenly realm.


Eliade, M. (1971) The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971