Build our Cathedrals One Step at a Time

Do our very best to make our part of their cathedral as magnificent as possible and then leave to future generation to pitch in their contributions too.

I remember hearing stories about cathedrals requiring decades of labor and, over the course of the project, thousands of workers to be constructed. With life expectancy numbers as they were during Medieval times too, three or four generations of crafts people from the same family might work on the construction project. Knowing that they very likely wouldn’t live to see the finished product or enjoy the structure in their lifetime, why did so many work so hard?

They must have had a different goal in mind. Maybe a mason focused extra attention on a stone statue or other details. knowing that the extra attention would make the structure just that much more special for generations of people who could enjoy their work. Maybe a carpenter took a little bit of extra care establishing the cathedral’s rafters so that the roof could be held up even more securely. In essence: they focused where they could add their skills and in small unseen ways, made the whole building stronger by all of the crafts people doing their best collectively.

There’s something so exciting about completing a project whether that might be a novel or a thousand piece puzzle. Of course we rarely start projects without the intention of completing them, and there is something very important in completing what we start. It can show discipline and care to see something through to the end. But so much in life doesn’t really have a completion date. Are we ever done with taking care of family? Do we get to set our health aside once we reach a certain age or a certain level of fitness? Once we complete school, do we get a pass on learning anything? Not to mention all the unintentional work life throws at us in dealing with heartbreak, disappointment, loss, and pain.

No, most worthwhile things in life don’t have a fixed completion date, but maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Maybe we could take a lesson from those crafts people from centuries past who just did their very best to make their part of their cathedral, as magnificent as possible and then left to future generation to pitch in their contributions too.