The Carpenter and the Absent Workers

There once was a carpenter who wanted to build a great house…

This house, however, was not like any other house. This house existed in a land where there were a myriad of apartments; high-priced, high-rise apartments that packed people in where they barely had room to live. Still, the people had little options but to live in such an environment.

It was this situation that caused the carpenter to seek to build a mansion with many apartments; a mansion that his father was actually the architect of. It wasn’t long before the man had met a number of individuals who wanted to help…

“First,” he said, “we will need to obtain more specialized skills and workers. What we do not know we must learn, and in the meantime, while we are learning, we must save and buy materials for this complex.”

The carpenter estimated, in accordance with what his father had told him, that it would take 300 workers and a dozen overseers of another supervisor, who would himself manage a dozen workers, as the overseer would manage both this supervisor and a dozen of his own workers. The first task, therefore, was to acquire and train these dozen overseers, and then these secondary managers. They would then each find and train a dozen suitable workers of their own…

In the mean time they would have to work very hard, both in training for the project and in investing their time towards obtaining the necessary materials for the building.

After a few years it seemed that there were approximately one dozen of such individuals and even some secondary managers. “At this rate,” the carpenter said, “it should only be a short while before we have the necessary workers, training and funding for this project!”

But even this short while seemed like an eternity for many of the workers who had been training on job sites where much smaller buildings were thrown up much more quickly, by financers who had virtually unlimited funds due to their hands being dipped in the coffers of the high-rise apartment industry. But the carpenter would not get involved in this dirty business, and reasserted to his helpers that such was the direct antithesis of their project. “We must be patient,” he said, “and follow my father’s plans exactly. If we do,” he continued, “then it will only be a short while longer…”

…but those who said they came to help stopped showing up for work. They stopped their training to obtain the necessary skills for the project, “What does this guy know about anything anyway?” They said. “Where the hell is this grand architect of a father anyway? We should follow what he says we need to train in when he is not even telling us!?! Instead his son, who himself is still training, is telling us what we need to know? Between all of us we’ve worked a lot of jobs and had a lot of training. i think we know enough to go off on our own and work on our own projects, or on more fruitful projects around; projects that are actually doing something now.”

So many of them, most even, went their separate ways and did their own things. Years later they remarked to him “Where is your project now? Where is that house you were supposed to build? Didn’t you say it would only be a short while now?”

“My friends, don’t you see that this was with your help, and with all of us sticking to my father’s plan. I had many brothers before me who tried this same project and each of them faced the same problem. This project will only come about when the necessary people step up and help exactly as my father’s plan specifies. If this does not happen now then I will pass these blueprints on to a younger brother or even to my children. Eventually the project will be completed. My father is a great architect and he has assured me of this, and that is enough for me to be patient. The tasks are many that need to be done for such a project, but the workers are few. Pray then for more workers if you wish to see this all come to pass.”