Cracked Crystal

A glass of wine and the Oregonian at the end of a day is one of my favorite things. However, wine has many more calories than I want/need, so I decided to have Perrier with a twist instead. Perrier in a lovely cut-crystal glass is almost (but not quite) as enjoyable as wine. I owned two beautifully etched crystal wine glasses that I rarely use. I decided that the beauty of the glass might make up for the deficiency of the content. I think that is a piece of reasoning that is quite common and often works very well on some level.

In any case, I poured the Perrier, added my twist of lemon, several ice cubes and retired to my favorite chair with the newspaper. I have a cork coaster handy there for just such occasions. The table was my grandfather's library table and will watermark with a sweating glass. As I perused the paper, sipping my "wine" I noticed my glass was sweating profusely. I went to the kitchen for a paper towel and folded it into fourths beneath the glass. It was promptly soaked. The evening was warm and I repeated my trek to the kitchen to fetch another folded towel. That was soon soaked as well and I brought my glass into the kitchen with me to wipe away the "sweat." As I placed the lovely glass on the counter I observed the "wine" oozing from the side of the etching. Could my glass possibly be flawed!!?? I held it to the light. There it was....the imperceptible flaw in the etching. The delicate beauty was fatally flawed and rendered the glass useless. It was only pretty to look at. When put to the test of reality it failed sadly.

In disgust, disappointment and a broken heart I placed the cracked crystal glass in the trash and took another, rather common, wine glass from the cupboard for more Perrier. Note that I did not/could not throw the cracked glass, but gently placed it in the trash. And then I gently retrieved it, went for my camera and phtotgraphed it. The beauty was too great not to record.

In our world there are many "cracked crystals." Leonard Pitts (Miami Hearld Columnist) has written about two lately: Paris Hilton and Jerry Falwell. They are/were both flawed in widely different ways, but flawed never-the-less. Folks admire and seek to emulate them, but when put to the test they fail miserably and publicly.

Closer to home, I hired, and subsequently had to fire, a piece of cracked crystal. She was an attractive and engaging young woman who seemed to have potential and desire to succeed. I seek and enjoy diversity in my staff and she fit that model well. We taught and trained her for over 4 weeks without success. She could not and would not learn and didn't seem to care. With heavy hearts and sadness, after many counseling and coaching sessions, we terminated her. She seemed to accept our decision well. We later learned that, upon reaching our parking area, she became violent and spent several minutes spewing foul language and anger to anyone within earshot. She was cracked crystal and she broke our hearts.

I guess there will always be cracked crystal in our lives. I hope we never grow hardened to that and that they always break our hearts. If not, we have no hope for the future. We should always continue to look for that perfect glass.

I think I will keep that other glass just to look at and never use. It will be my hope for the future.