Forgotten Treasures
by Rev. Robert J. Hermley

Stories for Life Index
Home Page

While gliding down the streets of Venice in a Gondola, our guide carefully pointed out that the Venetian people usually ignore the looks of the outside of their homes and take all of their valuable possessions upstairs to the top floors to protect them from the flooding waters of the canals which seem to plague them from time to time.  These people keep only the bare necessities of life, used fro day to day living, on their first floors.

In our everyday life, we often act in the very same manner.  We take all our spiritual and intellectual treasures earned throughout our lives and place them upstairs in our minds - somewhere.

Prayers, meditations, good thoughts, kindness and the spiritual life once were a definite part of us, but that was a long time ago.  materialism and the love of the good life have since flooded our lives and we've learned to live on the bottom floor with what we think are our daily necessities - T.V., VCR's, Internet, radio, magazines, rock and roll, and other mundane things.

All the while, there are spiritual treasures upstairs in the mind that are never used or looked at any more; at times, we have even long since forgotten that we ever had them at all.  They are truly forgotten treasures.

Lord, help me to dust off my spiritual treasures once again; aid me to make use of all the beautiful meditations and hopes and desires that You give so freely; teach me to have the faith to bring them downstairs and to show them to a world that desperately needs to see and share in their goodness.