The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life by Mark Nepo

Author:Mark Nepo [Nepo, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

THE LOSS OF ONE BRICK

We must love one another

Or die.

—W. H. AUDEN

Compassion has always been the key to whether we understand each other or not. And so goes the world. Like so many things, this is old medicine, carried in timeless pouches we call stories.

One such story goes like this. In the beginning, everyone spoke the same language. It was thousands of years ago in the land of Uruk, which is now somewhere in Iran. And the early human family, still of one tribe, devoted themselves to the building of a single tower that would be taller than any structure ever built. Their hope was to create a visible landmark, so that anyone losing their way could simply turn and look to the tower and find their way home.

The entire tribe was united behind this purpose. But it took much longer than anyone imagined. By the time the third generation assumed the task, the tower, still incomplete, was so high that it took a worker almost a year to carry the next brick to its place.

But the grandchildren of the original builders really didn’t carry the same devotion for the job. It felt more like a chore for them, having to build someone else’s dream. Without their own devotion, it wasn’t long before the press of the task consumed them. Finally, one day, a worker carrying the next brick fell, and they mourned the brick over the worker.

Of course, the broken landmark is the Tower of Babel, and it is well known that, shortly after this brick-carrier died, the now-heartless workers, pressed to finish someone else’s dream, decided to loot Heaven, upon which God confounded or confused their tongues. They instantly lost the ability to understand each other. The tower was never finished, and the human family, no longer able to speak to one another, dispersed across the earth.

The medicine carried in this story tells us that the moment we value the brick over the person, we lose the ability to understand each other—we lose the privilege of a common language. And the moment we agree to build a dream we don’t believe in, for whatever reason, we become enslaved to the task.

We each carry this possibility in us daily. But there is an antidote as well, carried in another story. It seems that generations later, a mysterious and powerful spirit came to earth, powerful in his gentleness and his acceptance of human frailty. His ways were somehow threatening to the conquerors of the time and he was killed. But he had touched the lives of many in his short time on earth.

One of his closest followers felt compelled to keep his master’s ways alive. But like the others, he was heartbroken with grief by his master’s death. Confused and torn apart, they wandered among themselves for days. Then Peter was stunned to meet Jesus. He had come back to life. What this did to Peter was inexplicable.

It wasn’t long after this that Peter found himself before a crowd of Jews assembled from all over the world.

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