back at my desk

I have a post in my head that I will make later today; I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, so I can't take the time right now to tell you about my day yesterday (all 20 hours of it). But I will! And there's a story Robert Fulghum once told about a cathedral. I don't want to forget that.

GOOD MORNING, everyone.

how to build a cathedral

So I don't have Fulghum's essay in front of me, but I believe the bit I'm thinking of is from his piece about Chartres, in which he points out that the people who began and worked on the cathedral there did so knowing it would not (in fact could not) be finished in their lifetimes. As I remember, the anecdote as he tells it has a person asking several individuals at work what they are doing. The stonemason said, "I'm carving stone." And the woodworker said, "I'm carving wood." And the glazier said, "I'm staining glass." And a woman sweeping up sawdust said, "Me? I'm building a cathedral to Almighty God."

( So here is a rough accounting of my day yesterday. )

I had some thoughts about the disappointment of those who are disappointed, and how I cannot at the moment believe that disappointment can possibly be compared to our disappointment (around which I have thought long and hard and decided not to use quotation marks) in the last two elections ( -- )

but instead, I will note this:

See, in the above timeline, how the cautious optimism persisted even as the thing looked surer and surer and surer? And then I got home and saw my flist, and one post after another where people were saying things like "OMG (almost!)" and "YES, barring electoral irregularities, WE DID!" and so on. It's kind of funny, how the Democrats and their usual supporters have learned that there is no such thing as too much caution, and how you can't count a chicken before it has hatched and survived at least a couple of days, and so on. Kind of funny. In a poignant sort of way.

Not letting it harsh my buzz, though. Not a bit. :-D

coda

today, 2:20 pm: www.xe.com has £1.00 at $1.59.

I admit, I didn't look at where the dollar was yesterday. But today, it's doing better than I've been used to thinking of it doing for an awfully long time.

here it is

I related the story this morning, but here is the bit I was thinking of:

The experience with the Driving Master emphasizes the profound truth of of an old story.  If you don't know it, it's time you heard it.  If you know it, you ought to hear it again once in a while.

The story says that a traveler from Italy came to the French town of Chartres to see the great church that was being built there.  Arriving at the end of the day, he went to the site just as the workmen were leaving for home.  He asked one man, covered with dust, what he did there.  The man replied that he was a stonemason.  He spent his days carving rocks.  Another man, when asked, said he was a glassblower who spent his days making slabs of colored glass.  Still another workman replied that he was a blacksmith who pounded iron for a living.

Wandering into the deepening gloom of the unfinished edifice, the traveler came upon an older woman, armed with a broom, sweeping up the stone chips and wood shavings and glass shards from the day's work.  "What are you doing?" he asked.

The woman paused, leaning on her broom, and looking up toward the high arches, replied, "Me?  I'm building a cathedral for the Glory of Almighty God."

I've often thought about the people of Chartres.  They began something they knew they would never see completed.  They built for something larger than themselves.  They had a magnificent vision.

-- Robert Fulghum: "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It"

Fulghum's essay is mainly about a driving instructor, but it could just as easily have been about, say, any given volunteer with the Obama campaign's Pennsylvania voter protection team.  Or any other state's voter protection team.  Or any other volunteer.  Or any voter, to be perfectly honest.  Don't you think?

That's all.  Good night, everybody.  :-)