Issue 1168 – Rocks and Minerals and Crystals… Oh My – June 3, 2023
My late father was a rock hound. He was one of those people who scoured the countryside and waterways in search of interesting, precious and semi-precious stones and crafted things from his finds. To be more formal, my father was an experienced practitioner of the fine craft of lapidary. He could never let a pretty rock escape.
He and my mother made many forms of beautiful jewelry and decorative objects from stone, beads, metal and wood. I was constantly amazed at their craftsmanship and the variety of things they made. My parents were indeed artisans and craftsmen.
When we visited my folks on the farm, there were always crates of rocks gathered from their latest excursion into the field somewhere or the recesses of some lapidary shop. Boxes and envelopes were stuffed with their latest acquisition from some wholesaler or miner from someplace else.
There were piles and crates of agates, jaspers, petrified wood, fossils, rhyolites, crystals, geodes and more.
The shop held bottles, bins of beads, faceted stones, and all the findings, tools, and paraphernalia needed to create things. Rock tumblers full of stones in various degrees of polish rolled rhythmically, and lapidary saws stood by for cutting larger pieces into slabs.
In the shop and house were books, magazines and catalogues detailing some aspect or another of the rockhounding, lapidary, jewelry-creating world.
If you wandered into the yard, there were hundreds of varieties of stone in rough form, just as they had been found or mined. There were rocks of different colours, patterns and hardness. Some were quite beautiful even in their raw state; others had their beauty hidden until they were tumbled, polished or faceted. Still others were very plain but had an appeal of their own. Virtually every colour, shade and hue imaginable could be found in a rock on the property.
At that, everything on the farm or in the house and shop comprised only a tiny taste of the diversity of rocks and minerals worldwide.
Some stones can be found almost everywhere in the world. Others are so rare that you can find them only in one mine. There are stones of no value to a rockhound. They call them leaverite, as in Leave’ er rite where you found them.
Others are so precious that you and I will probably never see them. For example, there are red diamonds, not the so-called “blood diamonds,” but diamonds that are shades of red rather than transparent. Most of those end up in museums of the vaults of wealthy private collectors.
I have often wondered why there is such a wide variety of rocks. Evolutionists tell us that people come in great diversity because they adapt and evolve to meet their needs. Yet stones haven’t had to evolve and are found in equal variety.
I believe the answer is quite simple. Firstly they come in a variety to make us ponder their beauty and creation. That pondering helps point us to God.
Their very existence is proof of His existence and a form of praise.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Romans 1:18-20
Secondly, God created the world with all its diversity because it pleased Him to do so.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:31
Until next time, when you see an “ordinary” rock or person, stop and think of the wondrous diversity the Lord has created and give Him praise.
Be Blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
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All contents, “Gleanings From The Word” and “Experience an Extraordinary God in Ordinary Life,” are © 2001, 2023 K.F. “Kevin” Corbin Gleanings From The Word.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the English Standard Version (ESV).
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