Macu ic

 

If you’re reading this you are a most likely a pillar or a brick. If you’re a pillar you may have some bricks in your life who don’t make a lick of sense to you.

If you’re a brick . . . well . . . keep reading.

 

My father is a pillar. I am a brick.

 

His values are pillar values. Find your plot and build. Commit. Plant roots. Get your kids in a good school, find a good church, make good friends and get the best job you can find. Work hard to set it up . . . and then stay put.

Say things like, “til death do we part” . . . and mean it.

Set your pillar and build around it.

He has never shown me anything but support and respect . . . but I don’t make sense to him. How could I? I’m a bricklayer.

I moved away. Far away. To another country. Another continent. Another world. Then I moved again. And again. And again. And again, until I finally showed some sense and came home . . . and then moved again.

One brick and then another.

That doesn’t make sense . . . to a pillar.

Here’s the kicker. Sometimes bricklayers don’t make sense . . . to themselves.

The values that were planted in me were pillar through and through. So while there is something perpetually boiling inside of me that has me thinking about the next brick even while I’m laying the last one, I had to wrestle hard with that tension . . . because it felt wrong.

Why can’t I just settle down? Get the house. Two cars. Picket fence.

That’s NORMAL right?

Then why does the thought of it make me vomit a little in my mouth?

I can’t explain it . . . except to say I am a bricklayer.

Ishant Mishra

 

Here’s what I’m learning about Pillars and Bricks

 

We’re BOTH building something solid. 

I’ve seen them now. The bricklayers who are older than my dad. They’ve spent their entire lives living 3 to 5 years at a time. One brick after another. One assignment after another. One country after another.  And what they end up with is EVERY BIT as solid as the greatest pillars.

Their story is rich. Their experience is deep. Their connections are golden and their network is GLOBAL.

It’s so different but it is SO solid.

 

Bricklaying is not a dysfunction

If you’re a bricklayer you might feel dysfunctional but I would bet that’s because there’s a pillar influence stuck in your head. Any set of values feels off when the dominant narrative is screaming “YOU’RE WRONG.”

“Why don’t you come home?”

“When are you gonna’ settle down?”

“I could NEVER live like that.”

But there are millions of people in the world with wander in their blood and it’s not a bad thing. It frees them up to redefine what “home” means. It gives them hives to think of “settling” and they can’t imagine NOT living like that.

It’s not the ONLY way to build something solid . . . but it is definitely A way.

You’re not alone. You’re not weird. You’re not broken.

 

Every brick matters

Ask any bricklayer (the literal kind) and they’ll tell you, when you’re laying bricks . . . every brick matters.

The first brick sets the trajectory for the next. So a crooked brick can mean a whole different wall. Lay a mushy brick and I can poke a hole in it. A few more and the hole gets bigger. Too many and the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Too much metaphor?

If your life is going to include multiple locations (OR one far away place that NEVER STOPS CHANGING) then do each one right. Start it right. Give more than you take. Build community. Dig in deep and love people well. Screw things up but work hard to make them better before you leave and when you leave, do it right.

That. Repeated. Is a solid wall.

 

Bricklaying CAN be dysfunctional

Just because it’s not a dysfunction doesn’t mean it can’t be dysfunctional. That should go on a t-shirt.

Bop from place to place with no regard for anyone but yourself. Take what you can get from the people and the culture and then move on to the next adventure. Run from your problems. Create new ones. Leave over and over but never leave well.

That not a solid wall. That’s a pile of mushy bricks.

 

So can pillars

Nice house. Two cars. Picket fence . . . is NOT a recipe for the problemless life. You know that right?

Never moving does not equal never falling apart.

 

(This ones important) Pillar values add value to a brick wall

Believe it or not, I am not the rebellious son. I didn’t run away. I never turned my back on steadiness. My pillar of a dad planted some things deep in me that remain to this day and even though my heart grows annually restless with the geography around me, I am pillar strong on the inside.

For example.

This year I will have been married as long as I was not. While my pillar perfect parents made that look easy they knew all along that it wasn’t — and they stayed together  . . . until death parted them.

I tread lightly on this next part because I don’t want to minimize the pain of anyone who has suffered from a broken marriage (I am sorry that happened) . . . but there have been plenty of times (and she will say “amen” when she reads this) when — if we were different people — we would have walked away.

And we would have been different people . . . without our pillars.

Stability is not an outside thing. It’s an inside thing.

 

and finally.

 

“Lick of Sense” is a really strange thing to say.

Am I wrong?

Who made that up?

I’m sure I could Google it and find out but I think I’d rather just leave it there.

I’m just sayin’.

 

Hey, bricks. Tell your pillars “thanks.” Pillars, tell your bricks they make you proud.