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You can learn an awful lot from a rock! It's close to the ultimate in physical reality, especially if you can examine it personally, regardless of what you think about it.
The words "rock" and "stone" are often used interchangeably. More formally, "stone" is "the hard, solid, nonmetallic mineral matter of which rocks are composed," although the term is also used for worked stone (cornerstone, tombstone), or a rock-like object that resembles something made of stone (cherry stone, gallstone). Stone is the material that comprises the crust of the earth, and, along with iron, meteorites as well.
This particular rock is from Vulcan Materials Company, our Nation's largest producer of construction aggregates. It is a piece of limestone, a sedimentary rock composed mainly of skeletal fragments containing calcite and aragonite, different crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) from the remains of marine organisms such as corals, forams and mollusks. It was quarried in Alabama from a formation that was once under sea water. The strata from which this rock was formed was laid down over geologic time by these organisms. They extracted carbon dioxide from our atmosphere to prevent the planet from getting too hot. This rock shows signs of having been broken from a larger piece and abrasion by collision and friction with similar rocks during quarrying and transportation.
About 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestone, which is soluble in water and weak acids. This solubility makes limestone statues and structures particularly vulnerable to acid rain. It also forms characteristic pockmarked landscapes known as karst topography, in which water erodes the limestone over thousands to millions of years. Most cave systems are through limestone bedrock, and about half of the world's petroleum reserves are in karst systems.
Although limestone and similar types of stone are still cut into blocks for commercial uses, the advent of Portland cement, safe and inexpensive high explosives and mechanical rock crushers has made it more economical to blast limestone formations apart and break the resulting fragments into manageable size. This makes the use of small pieces of limestone (rocks), as aggregate in concrete and as fill for road subgrades, rock gardens and railroad beds, attractive.
The layered nature of limestone, its usefulness as a building material and the ease of carving it into statuary have been exploited since ancient times. There are vast quarries beneath the city of Jerusalem, from which the material for the temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod, as well as other buildings, was mined. Zedekiah's Cave, or Solomon's Quarries, is a 5-acre limestone quarry that runs the length of five city blocks under the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. It was excavated by workmen using hammers and chisels over a period of several thousand years.
Small wonder, then, that numerous references to rocks and stones, used interchangeably by the King James translators, are found in the Bible. "Stone" is found 191 times, sometimes as a verb, and "rock" is used 119 times. The term "graven image" or "graven images" is used 46 times, only in the Old Testament, but sometimes refers to metallic castings, as well as carved stone. The making of such images for worship is forbidden by the First Commandment, Exodus 20:4, Leviticus 26:1 and Deuteronomy 5:8.
In the New Testament, Jesus compares his followers to a man who built his house on rock (Matthew 7:24, 25; Luke 6:48) instead of sand. He called Peter "A Rock" on which he would build his church (Matthew 16:18, John 1:42). He likened people who yield to temptation to good seed that falls on rock (Luke 8:6-13). He stated that God could raise up children of Abraham from stones (Matthew 3:9, Luke 3:8) and claimed that if his disciples were silenced, the very stones would cry out (Luke 19:40). He was tempted when he was hungry to make stones become bread (Matthew 4:3 and also Luke 4:3) and was reminded by the Devil that angels would not allow him to dash his foot against a stone (Psalms 91:12, Matthew 4:6, Luke 4:11).
Jesus healed a demoniac who cut himself with stones (Mark 5:5), the shards of which can be so sharp that they were humanity's first, and for over a million years only, cutting implements. He directed the Pharisees to let "he that is without sin" cast the first stone at the woman taken in adultery (John 8:3-11). The people took up stones to throw at him when he compared himself to God (John 8:59, 10:31), events of which his disciples reminded him when he proposed to visit the family of Lazarus (John 11:8). He once asked if a man would give his child a stone if he asked for bread (Matthew 7:9, Luke 11:11), and considered that anyone who scandalized children would be better off being cast into the sea with a millstone around his neck (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2). He told a story about a foreman stoning the owner's servant (Matthew 21:35, Mark 12:4). He reminded his followers of the Scriptural reference to the stone which was rejected becoming the cornerstone (Psalms 118:22, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17) and compared the Pharisees to someone being broken by falling on stone (Matthew 21:44, Luke 20:18). He foretold that the Temple in Jerusalem would be so completely destroyed that not one stone would be left on another (Matthew 24:2, Mark 13:2, Luke 19:44, 21:6).
Upon the death of Jesus, the rocks were rent (Matthew 27:51). His body was placed in a new tomb hewn out of rock (Matthew 27:60, Mark 15:46, Luke 23:53). Like that of Lazarus (John 11:38, 41) it was closed by a stone (Matthew 27:66, Mark 15:46). This stone was sealed and constantly guarded (Matthew 24:2), but was eventually rolled back by an angel (Matthew 28:2, Mark 16:4, Luke 24:2, John 20:1).
Although he made many comparisons to the Kingdom of Heaven, (Matthew 13:24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52, 18:23, 20:1, 22:2, 25:1, and 14), Jesus carefully avoided making any comparisons to God. His listeners already had a fixed idea of "the most high God" referenced in their Scripture, and it might have been considered blasphemous to compare Him to anything else. My understanding is that modern Judaism preserves this tradition. Islam names several attributes of God, sometimes imprecisely referred to "names of God" (Whose only proper name is "Allah") in the Koran. Most of the various extant flavors of Christianity don't have a name for God, so they simply call their deity "God." They seem sometimes to vie with each other by telling their congregations, especially children, different descriptions of "what God is like." Some of these ideas I find impossible to accept, to say no more. Given the imprecision of the term, I often don't know what "Do you believe in God?" - or "I don't believe in God" - really means.
It might help to resolve this dichotomy by following the example of Jesus and addressing the matter from the other way around (as I understand it, anyway) - namely, "how is a rock like God?"
This rock is like God (for those who understand the word as I do) simply by existing - by having "being," My old philosophy professors asserted that the God that they, as Catholic theologians, believed in was the only entity of which existence is a natural attribute, that is, has to exist, and upon whom (which) all other actual beings depend for their own existence. Of course, unlike God, this rock doesn't have to exist at all, which we can easily demonstrate by smashing it up into smaller rocks, dissolving it completely with acid, or leaving it outside for millions of years to weather away. Absent any of these actions, however, this rock continues to exist - pretty much like God.
Another way this rock is like God can be found in Scripture, specifically Exodus 3:14. This rock is what it is, regardless of what people think about it, or whether they know about or believe in it at all. Anyone who believes that it doesn't exist, or is something other than a rock, is just wrong - period.
This rock could, of course, be larger or smaller, or composed of a different material, or ground, polished or carved into a different shape, or pulverized into sand or powder. It is difficult to imagine, however, how this rock could be any more of a rock than it is. As a rock, it is just perfect, another Scriptural attribute of God, in Matthew 5:48
This rock also isn't the least bit affected by faith, what people think or believe about it, now or in the future. For all eternity, the history of the entire universe will include the fact of existence of this particular rock at this particular time. Future historians may doubt that it ever existed, or claim passionately that it did or could not, possibly with convincing arguments from science, philosophy or Scripture, but, if so, they will be just wrong!
Some people to whom I showed it suggested that it might be a gabbro, sandstone, granite, or a meteorite, none of which react readily with sulphuric acid (as this rock did when I tested it), so it's none of those things. (It's not an invisible man in the sky, a bearded guy on Mount Olympus, an alien from outer space, or cosmic gas, either.) Regardless of what anybody claims, no matter how devotedly or vehemently, it's still just a limestone rock.
Although that alone says an awful lot! Most us are comfortable with the idea that all material objects, including rocks, are composed of molecules and atoms, which themselves have constituent parts. But when one considers, for example, the conditions responsible for the attraction between the rock and the earth and the interplay of gravity and electromagnetic photons that keeps this rock on the counter supporting it but prevents it from sinking through, things get much more complicated than most of us can hope to understand. Indeed, without a comprehensive Theory of Everything, nobody can fully understand or describe a simple rock, much less God, No one has yet been able to come up with such a theory that explains what we can see about the universe, let alone what we can't see.
Another way that rocks are like God is the many blessings they have bestowed on us. Stone forms the surface of our planet, providing a firm foundation for all of our environment, and protecting us from the hell of the fierce, nuclear fission driven fires at its core. Our earliest ancestors found such universal protection and safety in karst caves that they are known to us today as cave men. The use and working of rocks into cutting tools, hammers, anvils, wedges and liquid containers was our species' major technology for over a million years.
From earliest antiquity to this very day, rocks comprise the majority of our building materials, both individually and as aggregate in concrete. Stone has sheltered us, provided our tools, helped in our defense against predators and our hunting of prey, and provided the substance for civil works that have enabled our kind to establish ourselves across our entire planet. It has also become the medium by which we remember and venerate our deceased loved ones, and commemorate and memorialize our great deeds and accomplishments as inspiration and guidance for future generations. Some of us have even kept rocks as pets! (I considered naming this one "Dwayne," which seems like a good name for a rock.) "In Praise of Limestone" is considered one of the finest poems of W. H. Auden, who maintained that "rock creates the only human landscape."
And when we became enlightened enough to recognize the possibility of unseen beings more sophisticated than ourselves, we carved stone images of and memorials to them. To this very day, all over the world, many of us worship "The Most High God" on stone altars in buildings made of that substance.
Jesus named his friend Simon Bar Jona, brother of Andrew, "Peter," "The Rock" upon which he would build his church. Catholics maintain that the current Pope is the direct successor in that role of Peter. Given the context, it is clear that Jesus meant an unshakable foundation, on which nothing built could ever be brought down, as he described in Matthew 7:24, 25 and Luke 6:48.
But I sometimes wonder if he wasn't also thinking about the other attributes of rocks, too. Because the Pope is essentially a teacher, and you can learn an awful lot from a rock!