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    by Fred Price

Building For The Long Haul
Date Posted: February 16, 2018

I recently came across an article published by Readers Digest that I had tucked away for future use – and promptly forgot – that reinforces the idea that people of every age and type face similar issues, struggles and temptations throughout their lives. Very often, we believe our present circumstances are unique to us, looking fondly on a past time that we imagine was simpler and less troubled; envying those so lucky as to have lived “back in the good old days.” All the while, many of our predecessors did likewise, coveting a supposedly slower-paced, less hectic lifestyle their parents and grandparents had even as they looked back and – well, you get the point. The “Teacher” of Ecclesiastes contradicting this idea by writing, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:1 & 9

The reason this rediscovered article rekindled my interest was that it was written by Mr. Rushworth Kidder back in 1990, lamenting his own high-pressure age, yet discovering a sense of peace and source of inspiration in a particular life-experience of his youth.

In his story, Mr. Kidder relates how, as a teenager, he learned some unexpected lessons from those who made a habit of building for the long haul. He had long admired a unique 18th century house built into a ridge of the Pelham Hills in Massachusetts, close to where he lived. A house that had at one time stood on the very frontier of civilization. It had been deeply embedded into the hill itself so as to make use of its insulating properties and safety if attacked by wild creatures – whether animal or human – of the wilderness. Both of its two stories opened at ground level on opposite sides of the hill, its exterior finished in clapboard and brick; interior amenities including a beehive oven and numerous chimneys.

Behind the house was a shed whose interior three walls were likewise dug into the hillside and finished with a technique known as dry-wall rock; the stone – from the foundation up – being fitted together without the use of mortar.

To shield and shade the property from wind, sun and rain, an oak tree had been planted atop the hill, which by the time of Kidder’s youth had grown huge, causing the issue he was then employed to rectify. The problem being that the root system, which supported and anchored the giant oak in place, now exerted inexorable pressure on the back wall of the shed, bowing it in to a precarious degree.

Using a crowbar, pick and shovel, the stones – ranging in size from large rocks to small boulders – had to be pried loose so the soil could be dug out to accommodate a freshly laid, perpendicular wall. But as it rose to the upper beam of the roof, there were stones to spare and gaps marring its surface. In comparison to the finely layered lines of the side walls, the back wall looked haphazard and anything but smooth. It was perhaps done well enough, but not quite “right.”

As young Mr. Kidder grew to manhood, time and occupation pulled him elsewhere, and “…the pulse and pressure of our quick-built age well(ed) up in my life.” But even then, he occasionally thought back to that old house and shed, in particular contemplating the time and effort it took to build them. Those good-old-boys so often building for the long haul; not only for themselves but for their children, their grandchildren and their newly-forming nation. For them, a sense of pattern was neither a luxury nor a burden, but a necessity as well as a point of pride. They intuitively knew that within the chaotic hub-bub of their daily lives could be found – or created – a sense of order. Many ascribing to the scriptural admonition, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might,…” Ecclesiastes 9:10 Paul’s instruction to, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands,…”; being exemplified by many of that time period. The self-evident reward being, “…so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” 1 Thessalonians 4:11,12

“Maybe, like their stonework, they saw themselves as bulwarks against that chaos. Maybe, in the end, they left us less with a collection of antiques than with a set of convictions: that even in their least public places, function should never over-rule form, and that foundation ultimately determines super-structure. Maybe they saw something we’ve almost forgotten: that what you are when nobody’s looking is what you really are.”1

Amen and Amen!

1From Building for the Long Haul, by Rushworth Kidder, condensed from a Christian Science Monitor article and republished in Readers Digest.


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Biography Information:

Fred Price - married (50 years), father of two grown children, grandfather of six.

Fred retired earlier this year after 42 years as a factory worker.  He has always had a heart for young people and the challenges they face today.  Over the years Fred has taught Discipleship Groups for High School and college students.  

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