[This is my comment on Rod Dreher’s Substack today. The topic stretches back to his column yesterday.] I can't think of a single instance, in Orthodox Christian history, in which gemstones are treated as specially charged or prophetic. I grant that any element of creation could be used by God in such a way, but it's hard to come up with any Orthodox examples. Gemstones are valued and even loved, and are used to beautify things, and some are ground up to make some of the colors used in icons. Now *icons* are definitely known as capable of bearing the power of the person depicted, and becoming "Wonder-Working." But I can't think of any such phenomenon about gems.

I say this as someone who picks up small stones when I go to holy sites, and brings them home as mementos, as souvenirs. [photo below] I do feel like there is some legitimate gray area (ha, they're usually gray) in which I feel a connection to the dirt, the earth, of that location. There's an in-between. But I don't converse with them.

I think of Naaman the leper (2 Kings 5), who brought a wagonload of dirt from Israel to his home in Syria, so he could worship on a bit of the Holy Land. I don't think he worshiped the dirt, but he definitely valued it, and felt a connection to the God of Israel when he stood upon it. Maybe that's how I feel about my souvenir stones.

On another topic, it just dawned on me this morning that haloes are "auras." A halo is not a golden disk behind the head, but a diffuse globe of light surrounding the head, like around a candle flame in a darkened room. We have never called them auras, but people who perceive auras might be perceiving haloes. Orthodoxy is full of stories of people being seen to glow.