John R. Miles

That's why, back on the Giza Plateau, the worker at dawn finishes his stir.

He doesn't have time to marvel at the alchemy in the pit because he knows the clock is ticking.

In that pit, the transformation is complete.

The mortar sits thick and ready.

It's no longer a collection of separate ingredients.

It's become a single living substance.

But here is the tension.

The mortar is at its most potent right now.

Yet, it is also at its most vulnerable.

If it stays in the pit, it hardens into a useless lump.

Its entire purpose is to be used, to be spread, and to be pressed between the weight of something heavy.

Meaning, like mortar, is not a state of being.

It's an act of application.

In our lives, this application phase is where so many of us falter.

We have the ingredients.

We have the sacred values we heard from Stephen Sloman on Tuesday.

We have the relationships and we have the goals, but we hesitate to apply them with conviction.

We keep our mix in the pit of someday, or maybe never quite willing to let it set.

The worker scoops a generous portion onto his wooden trowel.

You can almost hear the wet, heavy thwack as it hits the wood.