Sandpaper is a marvelous thing. You take bits of rocks and glue them to paper or some other somewhat flexible material. Then you rub the rough surface, removing bits of whatever it is you are sanding. The object becomes smoother and conforms to the shape desired. It is in this way that a random piece of maple becomes a Stradivarius violin.Two things: 1) the sandpaper also is changed through the process; and 2) the process is just that - a process. Reshaping wood takes a long time, patience, perseverance, and determination. It also requires willingness on the part of the worker to change the wood.
I am somewhat of a wood lover. I became such after having spent some time in a shop that sold exotic woods, wood that was sold by the pound rather than the dimension. Cocobolo, bocote, pink ivory - these were all woods I came to know. Each has it's own unique smell while it is being worked. Maple smells not surprisingly like syrup. Bocote smells like pickles. And Russian Olive just stinks. Bad.
The point is that each of us in our lives has things about us that are rough. We would like to get smoother, more useful to each other and the world. It is interesting, then, that if we would become less abrasive that we must go through an abrasive process to become such.
Just as abrasion is a removal, so is ablation. Ablation is the removing of layers of a material through intense heat. The bottoms of certain kinds of space craft are coated with ablative material in order to withstand the great heat generated at re-entry. The outer layers, microns thin, become superheated and cook off, while the rest of the capsule remains relatively cool and permits people to return back to Earth safely.
Under intense heat, it is possible to remove these outer layers of hardness from our lives. It is like the refiner's fire, which leaves only purity behind. That is what I seek.
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