Imagine it’s 1248. You are a stonecutter, and you have a job. Your community wants to build a church. You work, but the task seems overwhelming; years pass. As you age, other, younger stonecutters and masons join you. That new generation is just one of many that will eventually work on the church long after you are gone. Six hundred thirty-two years later, a distant generation finishes the project you started: Cologne Cathedral. The magnificent edifice is now a World Heritage Site.
Imagine being that stonecutter. You realize as you age that you will never see your work completed. It’s too massive. There are too many stones, and society always changes, often in turmoil; the work will be interrupted. You have, of course, no idea that what you started will take 632 years to finish.
Could you take on such a project? Could you begin something that you believe in even though you know that you could never finish it?
Maybe the thirteenth century stonecutter had no vision of the completed cathedral. Maybe it was a matter of doing the work to earn some food for self and family. No vision of the future. The work was daily. Get rock, cut rock, get more rock, and cut more rock. The only variety lay in the size of the finished stone and the weather conditions of the day.
You have choices. You can go big, dream of that completed edifice that will stand as testimony to your skill and effort, and distract yourself from the rock you must cut today; or, you can look at the rock before you, realize that you have some cutting to do, and get to work, one rock at a time with the realization that someday there will be an edifice standing as testimony to your work because removing a single stone from a finished wall weakens the wall.
Some projects are big, and big projects can make each of us feel little. Also, there are architects out there who draw up the plans and overseers who manage all the workers. These are the idea people who will likely get recognition for the completed project. We also know that their recognition depends on the lowly stonecutter. Stonecutters turn plans and instructions into lasting works.
Maybe the “edifice” that memorializes the stonecutter’s work is a single stone. Without it, the building remains incomplete. Maybe the work at hand, the cutting of a stone, no matter how seemingly insignificant within a project that takes years to finish, builds a personal edifice that completes a grand individual design.
Imagine being that stonecutter. You realize as you age that you will never see your work completed. It’s too massive. There are too many stones, and society always changes, often in turmoil; the work will be interrupted. You have, of course, no idea that what you started will take 632 years to finish.
Could you take on such a project? Could you begin something that you believe in even though you know that you could never finish it?
Maybe the thirteenth century stonecutter had no vision of the completed cathedral. Maybe it was a matter of doing the work to earn some food for self and family. No vision of the future. The work was daily. Get rock, cut rock, get more rock, and cut more rock. The only variety lay in the size of the finished stone and the weather conditions of the day.
You have choices. You can go big, dream of that completed edifice that will stand as testimony to your skill and effort, and distract yourself from the rock you must cut today; or, you can look at the rock before you, realize that you have some cutting to do, and get to work, one rock at a time with the realization that someday there will be an edifice standing as testimony to your work because removing a single stone from a finished wall weakens the wall.
Some projects are big, and big projects can make each of us feel little. Also, there are architects out there who draw up the plans and overseers who manage all the workers. These are the idea people who will likely get recognition for the completed project. We also know that their recognition depends on the lowly stonecutter. Stonecutters turn plans and instructions into lasting works.
Maybe the “edifice” that memorializes the stonecutter’s work is a single stone. Without it, the building remains incomplete. Maybe the work at hand, the cutting of a stone, no matter how seemingly insignificant within a project that takes years to finish, builds a personal edifice that completes a grand individual design.
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