Mind To Hand Work

The two brother brick layers worked as quietly and smoothly as polished granite – with seemingly little effort and without a word passed between them.

While one yielded a masonry hammer in his calloused right hand to trim and clean bricks, the other lifted a trowel in his rough right hand to butter up bricks with a layer of mortar before placing them next to another.

One brick after another they carefully built a brick veneer on the front of a house that had been constructed in a matter of weeks.

“The designers of this house want it to look its very best for those who will soon move in and live here,” one of the brothers allowed, “and we’re proud of this work.”

“It’s also important to remember that this will be someone’s home, a place of warmth and security for a family,” the other brother added as they both stood in front of the house.

Unbeknownst to these two brick layers, they share a sentiment with the stone masons who built medieval cathedrals; the work of both offers a feeling of strength, safety, and warmth for a family.

Commanding in their Christian symbolism and presence, cathedrals – usually constructed in the shape of a cross – were created from iron and stone like limestone, granite and flint.

As to construction time, on average it took 250 to 300 years to build a cathedral, as hundreds of stone masons labored to realize the architects’ vision.

And like today’s brick layers, those stone masons also had a dream of standing inside a cathedral and looking at the high walls, the stain glass windows, and vaulted ceiling.

Both brick layer and stone mason understood that what they could see with their minds would determine the way in which they worked with their hands.

Their work is priceless.