Beautiful Bricks

Tuesday 13 January, Eluru Children's Home, India

I enjoyed sifting through the broken bricks and the orphanage today. The midday sun had no mercy, it was mundane work and dust clung to sweat. Nevertheless I was happy.

'What a beautiful brick,' I commented, placing it in the sack. One of the girls agreed. Though isn't it strange, I continued.  Arriving three hours earlier at the work site - a pile of rubble that would eventually be a church - we didn't gasp 'oh what beautiful bricks we get to sort!'. We probably didn't think much at all - except for 'When is lunch?'

But after a while at work, something happens. Bricks become beautiful. The subject of excitement. What's changed? The bricks? No. The rubble? No. Nothing but our perception - and that is everything.

Is this not our story of India, I thought. Arriving  3 weeks earlier - we didn't think much of the place. The rubbish, the smells, the primitive conditions - made Boot Camp look like paradise! But now we see things differently. India hasn't changed (India's barely changed from when I was here 9 years ago!) - we have. We begin to see beauty. Beauty in the sunrises; in the smiles; in the simplicity..

..in bricks, even.