“An artist. He was porous. That was his gift and his curse. The world entered him without a filter. He saw the beauty that we walk past, but he felt the ugly, too. He felt the rust and the gray sky like a physical weight.”Father Tom · Peter James Stouffer
Elias looked at the stone and did not sneer. Father Tom saw it: recognition passing across the Professor's face.
The word Father Tom chooses is porous. It is not a diagnosis or a flaw. It is a description of how some people are made.
The same aperture that lets the beauty in lets the rust in too. The gift and the curse are not separate qualities. They are one opening, facing both directions.