Building a Cathedral

I had a horrid earache this weekend so was forced to slow down a bit. Just as well really as my work has suddenly become a confluence of sorts this week. This happens periodically. I got to thinking. 

this pic is from travel.nationalgeographic.com 

With several assignments tailing off, a new large piece of work on the list as well as an urgent smaller task to fit in between.... it feels like the Triveni Sangam in Allahabad (see picture). I am reliably informed that this is a confluence of several rivers, including the Ganges, and the mythical Saraswati (said to flow underground and join the other two rivers from below). The waters are different colours and they all meet at the sea at the Bay of Bengal. Hectic.


As such, I fear the fun things I like to do like reading and supporting the library might get crowded out. Things are going so slowly (relative to how work usually goes). Children are few in the library, our volunteer readers are busy, the HCL committee is stretched kinda thin. Getting people back into these old and tired libraries feels suddenly like an immense task. 

from the thezimbabwean.co.uk 

And then I remembered the story of the quarry men. It goes like this. There were these three guys chipping stones in a huge quarry. Just sitting there, near each other, chipping away with chisels. The first guy was asked what he was doing, and he replied that he was chipping rock. Boring huh. The second man was asked the same question, and he responded that he was providing for his family. Purposeful at least. The third man, doing identical work, was asked the same question, and he said that he was building a cathedral. Like, WOW!

Il Duomo in Milan, Italy

The lesson being, duh, if you are just chipping rock, you make yourself a common labourer. If you are providing for your family then it becomes personal and purposeful. But finding the cathedral in your work can generate the inspiration and motivation not just to get through the tough times, but brings in the bigger picture, the higher purpose, in the case of renovating and rejuvenating the children's section of HCL branch libraries it can mean the civic duty that makes our Harare world a better place for all of us now and through the future...our children. 


I am imagining my cathedral...and carrying on. This cathedral needs some timber, some paint and the time of a builder/handyman or woman. Without this the reading corner won't get done.