By Dale T. Doll
Attention, Earthlings:
I found a shell on the beach this morning.
To be honest, "found" might be a strong word.
I saw a shell.
Picked it up.
Judged it.
And nearly threw it away.
The shell wasn't perfect. Part of it had broken off. The edge was chipped. It looked like it had lost an argument with the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, a few feet away, somebody had collected several shells and arranged them carefully in a bucket.
Most weren't perfect either.
Some had cracks.
Some were worn smooth.
Some looked as though they'd been stepped on by generations of tourists wearing sandals with questionable architectural support.
Yet somebody thought they were worth keeping.
That got me thinking.
The beach doesn't seem to care much about perfection.
The shells have been tossed around by waves, buried in sand, battered by storms, and baked by the Florida sun.
That's part of their story.
In fact, if every shell on the beach were flawless, they would probably be less interesting.
A perfect shell tells you very little.
A weathered shell has been somewhere.
I ended up keeping the broken one.
Not because it was rare.
Not because it was valuable.
For all I know, there are ten thousand more exactly like it.
I kept it because I liked it.
Besides, as a ventriloquist dummy with loose joints and a tendency to say the wrong thing, I feel a certain kinship with imperfect objects.
Later, Barry picked it up from my desk and turned it over in his hand.
"You know," he said, "there's a verse that reminds me of this."
Here we go, I thought.
He smiled.
"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit."
"That's about people, Barry."
"I know."
I looked at the shell.
The crack was still there.
The missing piece hadn't magically returned.
Yet somehow I liked it more than when I found it.
Maybe Barry had a point.
Maybe being broken isn't the same thing as being worthless.
The shell is sitting on my desk now.
Every time I look at it, I'm reminded that a few cracks don't automatically ruin something.
Sometimes they just prove it survived the trip.
And considering the state of the world, surviving the trip is an accomplishment.
Until next time, Earthlings, keep an eye on the small things.
You never know when a broken shell might have a better story than a perfect one.
Stay curious. 🌴🐚
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