As I look at the picture of the Condon castle (see the article, “A Quiet Coup” in this book) I marvel at the number of rocks and the work that went into building it.  When I consider that the base of the castle is 15 feet thick, my estimations of what it took to build it multiply by many times.  Ireland is a rocky land, but surely the Condons had to range far and wide to find so many rocks.  Each had to be picked up by hand, loaded on a wagon, and transported to the castle.  Was each rock carried by hand up the stairs, or did the Condons have ropes and pulleys to make the job easier?

Each rock was individually handled many times and finally mortared into place.  Many people working together for a long period of time enabled them to eventually finish the job.  The result of their diligent labor was security for themselves and for many generations of their posterity.  They erected a structure that has stood for 1000 years, and which has blessed many generations.

Running through my own farm is a 4-foot-deep, 6-foot-wide, and 7-mile-long ditch.  It was dug over a century ago by men working together with shovels, muscles, and horse-drawn fresnos.  They dug through rocky bluffs, steep hillsides, and thick woods.  It was a task that I can’t imagine undertaking.

Each year when I cleaned the ditch where it runs through the rocky bluff I marveled at the labor required to build the entire ditch.  Shoveling the rocks and gravel that sloughed off the bluff every year was a long, backbreaking job.  Imagining myself working like that day after day for seven miles exhausted me to think about it.  Yet the labor those men performed has blessed me and my neighbors every year for many decades.  I am grateful to them.  I was grateful to them every year as I painstakingly cleaned the detritus from the rocky bluff that threatened to fill the ditch.

It’s amazing what can be accomplished by slow, steady, dedicated labor.  As a little boy I took note of a clipping that my mother had taped on the inside cover of her cookbook.  It’s a beautiful piece of writing by Archibald Rutledge which conveys one of life’s secrets.  I read it over and over, and have it nearly memorized.  I cherish it, and think of it frequently.  I quote it here.

“One day in the mountains I came upon a sweet birch sapling apparently

growing on a solid rock with only one slight depression, which had collected         leaves that had turned to mold.  In this meager footing of light soil the young

tree had taken             root.  I wondered if it would survive.

“A few years later I saw the tree, lusty and hale; and the rock had been cleft          asunder.  The delicate roots that you might at first have snapped with your

fingers, had sought and had found a tiny fissure in the massive boulder.

Then, with the strange strength of gentleness, and with a patient persistence

that never wearied during the growing seasons for months and for years,

they slowly forced their way downward toward the life-sustaining soil

beneath, until, at last, silently they rived the rock of granite.

“I learned from that lesson that there is no natural force, however barbaric

in its might, which will not yield at length to slow, sagacious, and

dispassionate effort.

“All wholesome growth is leisurely.  Most of the waste of the world is

occasioned by haste.  If we can’t have patience we might as well quit.

Wherever there is life, its greatest privileges are to be enjoyed and its

most beautiful promises come to flower only if the law of patience is

obeyed.”

What rocks of granite am I slowly riving?  What slow, dispassionate labor are you performing that will bless generations?

As I watch my wife and her nine daughters deal with their children, I see sweet birch saplings patiently working at their rocks.  Molding children into worthwhile, righteous, happy adults is something that can only be accomplished by slow, steady effort.  My girls (and boys) are steady.

So is my wife.  She’s never let up.  She’s been patiently working on the construction of our Kerns castle for over four decades.  I’ve been working with her.  Together we’ve built something quite remarkable.

The structure isn’t yet complete.  The Condon castle probably wasn’t completed in one generation, either.

Our children are raising the structure to new levels.