Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. ~ Oscar Wilde

I wrote the poem below, Precious Things, last week and it’s what I want to talk about tonight. But I want to start by telling you about is a jade Buddha I bought in China. I have always loved two types of stone, jade and turquoise. I still haven’t found a turquoise piece that moved me enough to buy. However, when I was in China, I really wanted to find a jade Buddha. The one I ended up buying, I think more than anything else, I bought because of the way the salesperson talked about jade. He told me that if I buy a piece a jade I need to understand that jade is like a living thing, if it is ignored, it dulls and loses it’s value. As such, owning a piece of jade brings responsibility, it must be loved and polished regularly to keep is luster, quality and value.

I loved the way he talked about jade, it made me feel that the connection I always felt for that stone was a reflection of what the stone itself needs and in some way was asking for. It will now be obvious why I wrote about the feeling I was having the way I did.

Tonight I want to talk about the precious things in our lives. And yes, we have precious possessions, I have my jade Buddha, my Day of the Dead paintings, my Thankas, my grandfather’s rifle that he carried in World War 2 and my granny’s family bible. More important than those possessions though, are the precious relationships in our lives.

In our lives we have people that are incredibly dear to us. For many people, a lot of these people are the people that are closest to us both emotionally and geographically, people we see often. However, some are those who are emotionally close but geographically far away. This is especially accurate for a nomad like me. Those precious relationships are harder to take care of, it’s easy to let life get in the way and let weeks, months and sometimes even years go by. Regardless of near or far, we at times let life get in the way and we neglect these relationships. When we do, like precious jade, those relationships dull and begin to lose their value and worst of all can be lost altogether.

Not too long ago, I mentioned to my brother that I felt a bit like unpolished jade. As I mentioned in my post, nobody is happy all of the time, I recently went through a tough time, and some of the people who I support, who I felt like were precious people in my life, were not there for me. And this is where that feeling, and the poem came from.

So my message tonight is a simple reminder to pull open that drawer and polish your relationship jade. Make that call, write that letter, text or email, go visit that person and give them a hug. You’ll have happier days for the effort my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Precious Things                                                    9/15/21

We all have precious things
we keep them tucked away
hidden from the world
just for us
but sometimes
we neglect that which we love
not out of love lost
nor lack of caring
but because the world, our life
just gets in the way
we allow that which keeps us busy
to neglect that which is truly precious
it dulls
it fades
then losses its value
again found,
we wonder
how did this happen?
time goes on