Building Cathedrals

(I don't know who the author of this piece is. Celina past it along in an email)

I'm invisible.
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the
lack of response, the way
one of the kids walks into the room while I'm on the
phone and asks to be
taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you
see I'm on the phone?"

Obviously not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or
sweeping the floor, or
even standing on my head in the corner, because no
one can see me at all.

I'm invisible.


Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more:
Can you fix this?
Can you tie this?
Can you open this?


Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a
human being. I'm a clock
to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to
answer, "What number is
the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right
around 5:30, please."

I was certain that these were the hands that once
held books and the eyes
that studied history and the mind that graduated with
honors - but now
they had disappeared into the peanut butter,
never to be seen again.

She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner,
celebrating the return of a
friend from England . Janice had just gotten back
from a fabulous trip, and
she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed
in. I was sitting there,
looking around at the others all put together so
well. It was hard not to
compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at
my out-of-style dress;
it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My
unwashed hair was
pulled back in a ponytail and I was afraid I could
actually smell peanut
butter in it.

I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to
me with a beautifully
wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I
wasn't exactly sure why
she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:
"To My Friend, with admiration for the greatness of
what you are building
when no one sees."


In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the
book. And I would discover
what would become for me, four life-changing truths,
after which I could
pattern my work:


* No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we
have no record of their
names.
* These builders gave their whole lives for a work
they would never see
finished.
* They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
* The passion of their building was fueled by their
faith that the eyes of
God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who
came to visit the
cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a
workman carving a tiny bird
on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked
the man, "Why are you
spending so much time carving that bird into a beam
that will be covered by
the roof? No one will ever see it."

And the workman replied, "Because God sees."


I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall
into place. It was almost
as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, I see
the sacrifices you
make every day, even when no one around you does. No
act of kindness you've
done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've
baked, is too small for me
to notice and smile over. You are building a great
cathedral, but you can't
see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction.
But it is not a disease
that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the
disease of my own
self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong,
stubborn pride.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a
great builder. As one of
the people who show up at a job that they will never
see finished, to work
on something that their name will never be on. The
writer of the book went so far as to say that no
cathedrals could ever
be built in our lifetime because there are so few
people willing to
sacrifice to that degree.
When I really think about it, I don't want my son to
tell the friend he's
bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom
gets up at 4 in the
morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand
bastes a turkey for three
hours and presses all the linens for the table." That
would mean I'd built a
shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to
want to come home. And
then, if there is anything more to say to his friend,
to add, "You're gonna
love it there."
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We
cannot be seen if we're
doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that
the world will marvel,
not only at what we have built, but at the beauty
that has been added to the
world by the sacrifices of invisible women.