SOMETIMES there is a typo error in my column! Once in a way not one, not two, but three! Normally within minutes of sending the column, I get readers responding from all over, some sending me an emoji of appreciation, others coining a reply. Sometimes it’s a dozen, often a score and every, once in a while a few hundred write in.
But those days when an error takes place, there is an avalanche! Messages came from all over, each pointing out the mistake I’ve made, and I thank each one of you for the same.
But today it made me think about imitation marble and our faults: My dad was an interior designer, and while in college I worked as a salesman for him. My job was to go to different customers and convince them they needed us. Generally, they were theatres, stores and homes I visited.
Since a new theatre was being built in the locality I went over. Some of the work was already done, but the owner evinced interest in my sales pitch, and told me to bring the boss for a talk. I did, and while waiting outside the office for the owner to call us in, my dad and I took a stroll through the shell of the theatre and I pointed out how beautiful the marble was.
“That’s not marble Bob!” said my father with a twinkle in his eye. “Of course it is!” I said, “look how perfect it is!” “And that perfection,” continued my father, “shows it’s not marble! Marble has lines, called faults, which run all over it. This is plaster of Paris, and a cheap imitation of marble!”
I remember that incident ever so clearly, which made me realize today that like marble, it is our faults, our weaknesses, our vulnerability that define our humanness! That every time we fail, we fall, we flounder, all the times we collapse, miss the mark, go astray, we are showing how human we are: Not a robot without a mind, not an animal without a soul, but a beautiful human created by God!
And it’s our faults that define us! Which brings me to an even greater truth; that every philosophy, talk or advice that speaks about attaining perfection by ourselves will just make us imitations, like plaster of Paris!
We cannot become perfect, but, and here’s the big but, we can do perfect things, with and through the help of the divine Marble Maker. The faults in us cannot be erased by ourselves, but with the outside help of the Creator, perfect lives can be lived! We just need to ask for help! Errors in my column show how human I am, how much I need His outside help, and I thank you for showing me that..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
