11 May Wisdom of the Ages
On a flight to Mexico City a few years ago, our family of four shared Row 14 with a couple from a small Mexican village. They were headed to their daughter’s wedding in the city and shared details about the festivities planned for the wedding weekend.
Emma, who is delighted by fairy tales and happy endings, listened eagerly to the description of the beautiful dress the bride would wear, the music and dancing and the cake covered with pink roses. She told the woman that someday she would probably find a prince and marry him in a similar celebration and they would live in a beautiful castle. She added that this arrangement would only work if the prince would bring her Red Vines every day and promise to do all the cleaning in the house.
The mother of the bride laughed. She patted Emma’s head and said, “My child, you don’t find a prince and a castle, you build those things.” Emma didn’t look so convinced and went back to her snack of Red Vines.
Later that week, we visited the Teotihuacan pyramids. Our tour guide gestured toward the area where we were standing and asked why we thought the pyramids were built on that spot. No one was sure, expecting to hear a story of a prophecy or how the pyramids mysteriously appeared like Stonehenge. Instead, he told us the people of this ancient civilization simply found a good, level spot with water nearby and began building. It wasn’t a story of perfection – it was a story of potential. They found a space that offered an opportunity, then put tremendous effort into building something great.
The mother-of-the-bride’s words echoed in my ear “…you don’t find a prince and a castle, you build those things.”
Perhaps someday, Emma will find a prince who lives in a castle and offers her endless Red Vines and commits to all of the housework. But my guess is she, like most of us, won’t simply stumble upon perfection. Rather, she will look around, like people did in the Valley of Mexico so many years ago, and say, “Here, we can build something here.” And they will open a pack of Red Vines and begin the hard work of building a life together.