Once, there was a city, shining and bright. It was a beautiful sight. It was a joyous spectacle of shining towers, rolling hills, lush gardens and wide, curving walls. An ecstatic mingling of angle and curve, an ideal cohabitation of the built and the grown were found there. It was, in a word, perfect.

The maker of the city was a genius. That was clear in the rise of every tower and the cut of every stone. But, he was also a caring man, and he built the city on a high place so that it could be seen and enjoyed by all those who lived around it.

Those who could see marveled, and were heartbroken. The beauty of the city was very great, much greater than their own homes. They despaired of ever living in the city themselves, for it was set so high, on a mountain so steep that the way seemed impassable.

The Maker traveled the land and caused people to look up toward the city. From another man, this may have seemed like boasting, but the Maker’s quiet, confident tone and gentle insistence showed it was something else altogether.

 He said. “Look at the city I have made. It is very beautiful, but do not despair. I will teach you to build. I will help you cut stone, build houses and shape the land so that your home will be like mine. And one day, at the right time, I will show you the way from this place to that. Then, my home will be yours.”

The people of the land enthusiastically began to build. How could they not? The city and its maker were before their eyes, filling them with a longing for that which they did not have, for a place where they were not. Their homes and towns grew in size and in beauty.

Now, the Maker was not always there. He had others to visit and to help. When he was present, he taught and encouraged, but he loved to see the workers reach and grow, attempting tasks that were within their abilities, but only just. He seemed most satisfied when one of his students achieved a task, with his help, that she had thought impossible. Perhaps this was the reason he was seen less and less over time, and while his instructions remained, the Maker himself was soon but a memory.

The work was hard, and the instructions of the Maker were difficult to accomplish. Every stone had to be perfectly smooth, every joint perfectly connected. As the people followed the Maker’s direction, they chafed at the painstaking detail, and they complained that their homes, much improved though they were, were in no way as beautiful as the city.

So leaders rose up among the people to offer help. The finest stonecutters, the most skilled carpenters, the visionaries among the sculptors, the best in every trade began to direct the work and interpret the instructions of the Maker of the city. And, as the people grew weary and frustrated, the leaders taught them how to make the work easier, when to take a small shortcut in preparation or building that would achieve almost the same result. And as the people looked on the city with despair, the leaders decided to remove that hurt as well.

The leaders commissioned the building of a great wall, one that was not in the plans of the Maker. The people followed them, and built a wall so high and so broad that the city could no longer be seen. And the leaders told them of a city, one better than their own, but not much better. Different, but not very different. This was the goal, the leaders said, to make their city like that one. Was that not what the Maker had said?

And the people forgot. And the people, while not happy, were not very unhappy. For, when you forget joy, and struggle, and longing, it is not hard to confuse not-very-unhappiness with happiness. And the people did not so much fill the pit of longing the city had put in their hearts as pave over it and ignore the hollowness beneath. And time passed.

One day, much later, a man arrived at the gates. He had the humble bearing of a workman. His back was straight, his shoulders square, and he carried a great hammer slung across his shoulders. He was neither very short nor very tall, his hair and beard were short and his face unremarkable. His head moved slowly from side to side as he examined the place where he found himself. His eyes, though, darted rapidly from place to place, not just taking in the town, but seeing and understanding it. They were deep and knowing. They danced with the fires of genius.

He walked slowly through the town, past shoddy work, crooked walls, crippled trees and dirty fountains. He passed a few people working halfheartedly on skewed doorframes and pulling a few weeds from overgrown gardens. He walked all through the town until he reached the wall, the tall, broad, great wall. He stopped, turned his back to the wall, and began to speak.

He spoke of a city, shining and bright. This city was beautiful, a joyous spectacle of shining towers, rolling hills, lush gardens and wide, curving walls. An ecstatic mingling of angle and curve, an ideal cohabitation of the built and the grown were to be found there. It sounded perfect.

At first, his words reached only a few people passing near the wall. Many of these stopped; a few ran off through the city to gather others. Soon the street was full. The people listened, first in wonder, then in disbelief. “Such a city does not exist,” they said. They began to tell one another their own stories of a good city and reassured one another than this was what the stranger truly meant.

“Such a city could not exist,” said the leaders of the people, gathered at the back of the crowd.  They began to drown out the words of the man with talk about the cost of materials, the formulae for building and the rules of aesthetics as they reassured themselves that the stranger did not know of what he spoke.

These protestations were so loud and the people so distracted that no one noticed the man had stopped speaking. He laid his hammer on the ground and turned to face the wall. He ran both hands over its surface, slowly. He seemed absorbed by the process. His quick, inspired eyes traced the mortar that held the wall together and seemed to see right through the brick. He walked the length of the wall in this way, stopping near the center. He seemed to study a particular point for a long moment, then calmly retrieved his hammer.

He raised the long shaft, more than half his own height, and brought the heavy, black iron head arcing down toward the wall. A few people standing nearby had seen him walking along the wall and only now guessed at what the man was doing. They stared, or gasped, or shouted, but did not stop the hammer from punching a round crater in the brickwork.

The man stood up straight, stretched his laborer’s arms and rolled his shoulders. The sound of the hammer had brought the attention of a few back to him. As he turned to face the crowd, a strained creaking began to emanate from the wall. This grew louder, and, as the creaking became a crumbling, people tried to flee the falling wall.

The man stood, back to the wall as it fell, crumbling away from the town and the terrified people. The sound of the falling wall faded, replaced by nothing. Silence reigned.

“Look at the city I have made,” said the man.

And the people looked. And the people remembered. And the hollowness that they had hidden from themselves was laid bare, and they despaired.

The Maker of the city said, “Do not despair. I will again teach you to build. I will help you cut stone, build houses and shape the land so that your home will be like mine. The work will be hard, as it was. You will want to stop building, as you did. But keep heart, and keep working, and your homes will be beautiful, and one day, at the right time, I will show you the way from this place to that. Then, my home will be yours.”

One day, many days later, the Maker returned to the town and was pleased by what he saw. The homes were beautiful, the statues carved with care and the people diligently working to improve them. His gifted eyes could see flaws and imperfections in the work, and the beauty of the town was nothing to the beauty of the city, but the people constantly looked upward for comparison, then bent back to their work with energy.

The Maker walked through the town, sometimes approaching a man or woman at work. He would lay his hand on a shoulder, then lean over and whisper a few words in an ear. When he walked on, they would follow. This continued until he reached the edge of the town, a small crowd behind. They walked through the park whose paths had been paved and fountains built with bricks from the great wall, as the Maker had instructed. He led them out of their city and toward the mountains.

“Where are we going?” asked one man, a gardener, though this was just a question to fill silence. They all knew their destination.

“Home,” said the Maker. “What of the others?” asked a woman, a famous sculptor. “Many of them will come, in time,” said the Maker. “Why do they not come now?” asked the woman. “For the same reason that you did not come until now,” said the Maker.

They walked on in silence and later climbed on in silence. The Maker of the city showed them a narrow, nearly invisible pass where they had seen none, he showed them the way across treacherous piles of stone and deep chasms.

Finally, they reached the city. Its beauty was only more apparent as they approached it. Each of the people marveled to see their own trades displayed to such perfection. Carpenters, gardeners, muralists, all saw greater depths of detail and beauty with each step toward the city’s open gates. Now, so close, they could see the beauty of the city was not cold and grandiose, but welcoming. It was a place that invited one to explore and to stay and to rest.

As they entered, each stopped, realizing that this place, which had caused them such despair, would do so no more. Like a hole filled in, thought the sole excavator in the group; like a well-fitted joint, thought the pair of carpenters. Each felt a unique sense of rightness, of completeness, as the Maker welcomed them in.

For all work must someday finish, as all journeys reach an end,
Lost hopes can hurt to manage, and hurts a trial to mend
But the sweat is worth the rest and the dust is worth the road
When the end is worth the toil, and the journey ends in home.