Whose Obelisk is This?

The first obelisk was a stone pillar with a tapered top created by the ancient Egyptians to honor the sun god.

It is a finger, pointing to the sky.

The Roman army carried Egyptian obelisks back to Rome as a sign of their power over that nation.

The Vatican uncovered a buried Egyptian obelisk five hundred years ago and placed it in St. Peter’s Square as a sign of Catholicism’s victory over paganism. “Our God is better than your gods.”

Modern obelisks are erected as memorials of people, events, and accomplishments.

But the obelisk that interests me most is a jagged dagger of rock that rises eighteen hundred and forty-four feet above the surface of the ocean. This arrow to the sky has been known as Ball’s Pyramid since 1788, even though it was countless centuries old when Henry Ball’s mother gave birth to him.

It never really belonged to Ball; he just discovered it.

I think we put our names on things because we want to be remembered, but that doesn’t really work. Ben White and William Cannon are two famous boulevards in the city where I live, but I’ve never met anyone who could tell me who those men were or what they did.

My friend Tom Grimes once wrote me an email that said,

“Nobody other than a handful will think about us 15 minutes after we check out permanently. And when you realize how insignificant you really are, you are free to experience the world the way it is supposed to be experienced. One moment at a time. And that ‘This Day’ is ‘The Day.’”

I think Tom is right. Our lives aren’t measured by one big accomplishment, but by all the little things we do and say. Every person is given, at birth, a colorful imagination and a tongue for a brush.

Splashes of color are left on our lives by every person we encounter.

And how we do love those people who paint in our hearts a bright finger of encouragement, pointing toward the sky!

What will you paint today?

Roy H. Williams