Michelangelo And A Flawed Piece Of Marble And You.

I read an article in “Our Daily Bread” August, 18^th 2008 by Albert Lee, that for about a hundred years, a huge piece of flawed but otherwise expensive marble lay in the courtyard of a cathedral in Italy until around 1501, when a young sculptor was asked to “do something with it”. Which he did. He had in mind to do a sculpture of a young shepherd boy.

Well for 3 years he skilfully toiled at his task and finished with an 18-foot (just shy of 6 mts,) figure of “his” shepherd boy. That stature still stands and is admired greatly even today? Maybe you have heard of it too? It is of course, Michelangelo’s David. A true masterpiece! One, to which one of Michelangelo’s students supposedly exclaimed, “Master, it lacks only one thing – speech.”

Now I of course have not seen it up close and personal and thus only through photos, but every one who has, does agree that it is wonderful too. What attracted my attention was that it was made from a flawed stone. That and a flawed stone that had lain there for a hundred years, before the right person came along to do something wonderful with it. A stone that had it not been handled perfectly and properly, would have been not an invaluable work of art and admiration, but a heap, quite literally of useless little pieces of rock.

What is true of Marble is also true of humans too, isn’t it? So how many flawed humans have you come across in your lifetime and how have you left them? As invaluable works of art, or useless pieces of rock? Or have you just left them alone for someone else to deal with.

Even though not the preferred option, often that is the best option if you don’t know how to properly handle them to bring out their true potential, isn’t it? To leave them intact and undamaged by your presence and leave them for another "Michelangelo” to come along later and make them what they could be but what you can’t make the!

Do you do that? Or do you try anyway and simply leave a shattered mess there for someone else to deal with? Just a thought! What say you?