Friday, November 30, 2007

destruction is easy

it took less than 10 minutes.
my neighbor's house was destroyed this morning
intentionally.
they are going to build a new house on the property.
we live at a lake surrounded by a combination of old cottages
and new homes.
all the new homes are sitting on sites of previous cottages.
our neighbors inherited the cottage from her family.
it was orginally built 50 years ago from lumber recycled from a hen house.
over the years the family added rooms with very little thought to design.
now a new house will be in place assembled from all new materials
following an archetect's plans.
the new house is scheduled to be completed may 19.
it will take six months to complete the project.
the old house was destroyed in ten minutes.
we stood, cameras in hand and watched the bull dozer take it down.
an hour later and half of it is loaded into the back of an open semi trailer
to be dumped.
by days end the lot will be cleared and next week the foundation will be dug and in place.
a real life example of the contrast between building up and tearing down.
it's easy to tear down.
in my career i've supervised a lot of people.
my experience as a supervisor started my senior year in high school when my
boss made me his relief manager at the fast food restaurant.
I picked my own team to work with me every saturday and sunday so he could
have some time off.
i found it easy to criticize one of my crew who was not doing a good job.
it was much harder to help the person correct his or her mistakes.
tearing down is always easier than building up.
the job of the church is to build up.
too often we spend a lot of time tearing down.
destruction takes ten minutes
building takes six months

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