🏗️ TREE 654: scaffolding

L A W R E N C E × J E F F
chapter · 3
part · 2

Photo: Nicklas Harmann

Imagine you’re down on your luck, sofa surfing and directionless. Then one day a friend of a friend says there’s a job going at the scaffolding company he works for. You’re doing nothing and you can see that your mate’s girlfriend is sick of you taking up space in their house, so go with your mate’s friend to talk to the foreman. You get the job. And you like it. Before too long you have moved into a house share. You keep working hard. You get a little promotion and a raise. Then you have enough money to rent your own flat. After a couple years you’re supervising a crew. Then you become a foreman. Then the managing director. 10 years later, when the owner wants to retire, he helps you with a deal to buy the business.

For you, scaffolding is life. For everyone else, it’s the essential but temporary structure that enables them to get their building built or repaired. The scaffolding is not the building.

There are lots of people who work in scaffolding. I was one of them when I was a pastor. Philosophers are scaffolders, so are therapists and gurus. (Not all scaffolding is fit for purpose. Some works for one type of building but not for others.) For some people who work in scaffolding, scaffolding is life. They may try to sell you on that idea. If you want become a scaffolder, great. It’s important work. If not, remember that you are building a life, not the scaffolding around your life.

If you have access to BBC iPlayer, do yourself a huge favour and watch Tears For Fears’ set at Radio 2 in the Park. Curt was a little quiet on some of the high notes, but they are still going very very strong.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t go attach myself to another -ism when I left Christianity is that my parents and my church provided good scaffolding. When I was done with the scaffolding, I found I had built a fairly robust life. I didn’t need to wrap another structure around it.

Obviously this analogy has its limits – I’m still learning, growing and building – but I think it’s a useful picture to work with.

Keep building
Jeff

PS Here are the Brother Lawrence quotes that inspired today’s post:

That in the beginning of the spiritual life, we ought to be faithful in doing our duty and denying ourselves; but after that unspeakable pleasures followed…

and

That many do not advance in the Christian progress, because they stick in penances, and particular exercises, while they neglect the love of God, which is the end.