Potshard

We want to know the “secrets” of the past. So we dig. Under pyramids, in deserts and caves. For the magic artifact or word that will shed light on the past. What are we looking for really? Confirmation of one belief or another? Something we can bet our lives on?  I suppose there’s always that shifting glimmer of hope that ultimate revelation is only a brushing of sand, an unwinding of the scroll, a turning-of-the-page, away.

Can you feel the sharp intake of breath as dust slides from the surface and something ancient is seen for the first time in a long time? The tingle of excitement as you realize something life-changing may be written there?

A chunk of pottery 3,000 years old was recently found. 250 years older than the most recent find. From Jerusalem … with Hebrew writing on it … from the time of David and Solomon. Proof. Documentation. A text message from the past.

But too short to decipher.

Enigmatic even.

            Its presence its purpose.

            Its being in that time and this, its physical reality …

                                    pointing back and back and back.

            To another reality before cameras or cell phones …

            when writing on clay (or in it) was as permanent as it got.

            But pointing never-the-less. revealing …real people struggling, fighting, loving,

                        interpreting their world with words.

                                    Proving their existence and their ability to record it.

So we study it. Analyze the curves, the depth of stroke, the way it seems similar to something we’re pretty sure we do know about. And yet, it eludes us like some old woman refusing to speak about her past.

So we go on. Digging, dusting, analyzing, searching.

But maybe the answers aren’t in the ground, but in ourselves. Living dust from the hand of God ... made of mud ... born of stars. Our purpose found in our beginning.

3,000 years is a long time ago in memory. But it looks like yesterday on a potshard.