My dear Jane,

I’m still in Europe, where every village seems to have a little stone church tucked into its center. Yesterday I hopped quietly into one, as any frog would, and as colored light spilled across the floor through the stained-glass windows, I found myself remembering an old tale that seemed especially fitting after reading your last letter. It goes like this:

 

Mateo and Barnaby

In a little village where the church bells rang every morning, there lived a glassblower named Mateo. His workshop sat on a narrow stone street with flower boxes beneath the windows and ivy climbing the walls. People passing by often slowed their steps, not because they needed anything, but because they loved to watch him work.

 

Mateo made stained-glass windows, ones that caught the morning sun and scattered rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and gold across old stone floors. Children would chase the patches of color while their parents smiled, and the oldest villagers often lingered long after everyone else had gone home. Some said Mateo made beautiful windows, but Mateo thought the sunlight deserved most of the credit. Each morning he unlocked his workshop, swept away yesterday’s glass dust, and laid out tiny pieces of colored glass like jewels across his worn wooden table. He never hurried. Glass, he thought, preferred patience.

 

In that same village lived a little fly named Barnaby. Barnaby was certain he had a remarkable gift. Whenever he visited Mateo’s workshop, he could see things no one else seemed to notice: a bubble no larger than a raindrop, a line ever so slightly crooked, the tiniest scratch hidden along the edge of a pane. Whenever Barnaby found one, he felt it was terribly important to point it out. Sometimes he even wondered how anyone else could have missed it.

 

One sunny morning, Mateo was finishing the great arched window for the village church. It was the most delicate part of the whole window. The glowing glass had been warmed until it bent gently beneath his hands. Every movement had to be slow and steady. A moment’s distraction might spoil the graceful curve he had worked so carefully to create.

 

Just then Barnaby came buzzing through the open window. He circled once. Then twice. Finally he landed on the edge of Mateo’s workbench.

“Mateo!” he buzzed.

“You’re doing it all wrong.”

 

Mateo smiled. Without taking his eyes from the glowing glass, he gently lifted one finger. Just a moment. Barnaby waited. Or at least he tried to. He buzzed around the room. He flew to the ceiling. He landed on a blue pane. Then he buzzed back again. Surely, he thought, anyone would want to know if they were making mistakes.

 

At last Mateo set down his tools. The curve was finished. Only then did he turn with the same warm smile he always seemed to have.

“Now then,” he said, “what was it you wished to show me?”

Barnaby looked at him for a moment. Then he turned and flew away.

 

A little later Barnaby stopped beside the village fountain, where a sparrow splashed happily in the water and a honeybee wandered among the lavender. He told them about Mateo’s workshop and explained that Mateo never seemed to think he needed advice. If Barnaby didn’t point such things out, who would? Most people never even noticed them.

 

The honeybee listened politely.

“Have you ever made a stained-glass window?” she asked.

“No,” said Barnaby.

“But I know what one ought to look like.”

 

Back at his workshop, Mateo stood quietly for a moment. Then he lifted the great window from the workbench and wrapped it carefully in soft blankets. When it was ready, two strong apprentices helped him carry it through the winding streets toward the little church. Barnaby buzzed alongside, weaving this way and that as flies do.

 

“I believe that corner isn’t quite even.”

He darted to the other side.

“There’s another bubble.”

He drifted lower.

“That blue should have been just a little darker.”

 

Mateo continued steadily over the cobblestones. The great oak door stood open while the window was carried inside. Mateo steadied the glass with both hands as the apprentices lifted.

 

The heavy oak door swung shut behind them. Thump.

Barnaby hovered before the closed door. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he turned toward the village.

“First he shooed me away,” he muttered.

“Now he’s closed the door on me.”

 

Inside the church, the apprentices carefully unwrapped the great window. As it settled into its place, the morning sun poured through the colored glass. The stone floor suddenly bloomed with crimson, blue, gold, and green. A little girl stopped in her tracks. An old woman clasped her hands. Even the baker stepped quietly inside, flour still dusting his sleeves. No one said a word. There was nothing to say. Light had done what light always does.

 

Years later, the children who had grown up in that little village remembered Mateo’s windows long after they had forgotten who made them. They remembered weddings glowing with color, Christmas mornings washed in blue and gold, and quiet afternoons when sunlight painted the church floor like a garden.

 

As for Barnaby, he never stopped finding bubbles. He never stopped noticing tiny flaws. And perhaps that was useful now and then. But he spent so much of his life searching the glass that he almost never noticed the light shining through it.

 

Some spend their lives asking,

“Does this bring light?”

Others spend their lives asking,

“Where is the flaw?”

 

Neither question is entirely without value. But if your eyes become trained only to search for bubbles in the glass, you may become so occupied with imperfections that you never notice the light shining through the window.

 

The End. 

 

Love,

Frank