The white stone is not quite egg shaped, nor heart shaped.
Yet similar enough to suggest those familiar images.
The pebbled beach at Stonehaven is a geological kaleidoscope, awash with fluid formations of millions of fragments, coloured and contoured by sea, sand, and sun.
Fleeting fluid images can be captured by the framing of a photograph, an act of deliberate limitation and focus.
That white stone caught my eye, an image startling in its unexpectedness.
Surrounded by colours reminiscent of autumn shadow and sunlight, it seemed to absorb and contain the light.
The mysterious image of the white stone in the Book of Revelation was for me an inevitable connection.
"To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it." (Rev 2.17)
Those are words redolent of promise, embedding assurance in hearts vacillating and anxious about the future.
In John's troubled world, and in our own troubling times, the white stone points to a mystery beyond our controlling confident cognition, and resists our arrogantly assumed omniscience about what matters, and to whom.
That white stone is both promise and judgement. It is not there for the taking, it is a gift that comes from beyond our ken and power.
It is God's yes to those who stay faithful to Christ, it is an identity marker that cannot be faked, and it is the award of God's recognition of those whose lives have been given to the things that truly matter.
The white stone of justice, love of neighbour, mercy, walking humbly, hospitality, forgiveness, peacemaking, reconciliation, hope-building.
The white stone, with the new name written on it, given to those who in doing these things to the least of Jesus brothers and sisters, remained faithful as embodying the Gospel, performing the faith, and bearing witness to the love of God in Christ, by the power of the Spirit.
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