One morning as my wife and I were waiting for a train at our local station, I cast my eyes over the familiar utilitarian scene with its phone-holding inhabitants and I noticed something I had never paid attention to before. On the far side of the tracks there was an unassuming yellow-plastic treasure chest. I could see a padlock on it, but the latch was in front of the lock, ready to open. On the front it had large, black letters openly declared its contents: “Grit Salt”. I realise that this may not sound like treasure to you, or interesting or surprising or exceptional at all—and that’s just the point.
Last summer, our family visited a famous salt mine in Poland that has been running continuously since medieval times. Back then, receiving a handful of salt after work each day was enough to make the miners wealthy and motivate them to come back day after day to a back-breaking job where they all knew that the number of miners who came out alive was often less than the number that went in.
It’s hard to imagine that salt could be so motivational, but for long stretches of human history the white crystals we take for granted might as well have been gold dust. In a world without refrigeration, salt was the best way to preserve food through the winter. It was helpful in healing wounds, and prized for religious rituals. In some places Roman soldiers were paid in salt (like the Polish miners), which is why the Latin word for salt allowance, salarium, became our word for salary. Empires of the past were enriched by salt. Palaces were built and armies were raised by salt. Wealthy hosts used to display salt prominently in jewel-encrusted bowls on their banqueting tables, to showcase their opulent luxury.
To our ancestors, the yellow-plastic grit salt chest at the train station would be the equivalent of leaving a chest full of bank notes or gold bars or computer RAM chips out in public today. If treasure like that was clearly labelled, sitting unlocked and unguarded, it would be shocking—and it would probably disappear, quickly. It would certainly attract attention. But these days, no one thinks of the salt at the train station as treasure. They don’t think about it at all.
The disregarded treasure at the train station ought to make us think about the things we value and hoard and use to impress each other today. Will the day come when the things we give our lives to obtain eventually lose their lustre? Will today’s treasures someday be as attention-grabbing as grit salt? I believe they will. The Bible says the streets of heaven are paved with gold—probably the world’s most enduring treasure—but paving is usually not something we pay much attention to. I don’t think anyone will be chipping off bits of golden street to take home and hoard in their heavenly homes. The gold will still shine, like it always has, but we won’t value it the same way because we’ll see that there are far greater treasures. How could any golden glimmer or any created thing captivate us in the presence of God’s overwhelming glory? Heaven will be a place where true value shines through, a place where all the created things we treasure today will be put into their proper place, as gifts to be used and enjoyed, but never, ever to be lived for. In the light of true glory, I believe we’ll look back and wonder why we focused so much of our time and attention and anxiety on things that are—eternally—no more valuable than a chest of salt at the train station.
sethlewis.ie 