Building Blocks

This past week, my family began our big move from Texas to Alaska. In four short days, we've blazed through six states--just shy of 1,900 miles.  (And friends, that's a lot of miles!!)

It's possible that we are a bit nuts to take on such a big road trip. We didn't have to do it--the Army would have flown us all to our next home just as readily. But I guess I've always been the type of person who needs the journey. I enjoy feeling like I've "earned" my destination, you know? Four thousand miles of roads I'd yet to travel seemed like way too many to simply bypass by plane. I've yet to decide whether I have a gypsy soul or just a fear of missing out.
(Either way, we're committed to the craziness now!)

Luckily for me, I married a fellow-adventurer and quite possibly birthed the two best car riders in the history of mankind. No one ever complains when we hit the road, and even the dogs get excited to load in the back of the truck. We always try to make sure that the road trip is an adventure for everyone, so we break up our travels with little day trips along the way. Yesterday, we took a short detour from our move route so the kids could see Mount Rushmore.

It was my second time to see the impressive stone carving. (But I was only ten the first time, so I remembered very little of my first experience.) As I looked up at the mountain with my children, I tried my best to imagine what it would have been like almost 100 years ago, dangling from the precipice and blasting off chunks of granite, chiseling and chipping away in such fine detail, manipulating the artistic concepts of shadow and light on such a massive scale.
I wondered what on Earth would spur these men to risk their lives for a rock. Why did they choose to put this monument here in the Black Hills? Why did they choose these faces? How hard was it to keep this funded? What were they hoping to achieve here?

President Franklin D Roosevelt, standing at the monument in 1936, said this:
"I think that we can perhaps meditate a little on those Americans ten thousand years from now, when the weathering on the faces of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln shall have proceeded to perhaps the depth of a tenth of an inch...

Let us hope that at least they will give us the benefit of the doubt, that they will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve for our descendants a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under."

Why did they put the rock there? So that when "children" like me looked on their weathered faces and wondered why, I would be looking at the building blocks of my nation: principle, progress, preservation, and liberty. It was put there so that I could remember what I have been given, and what I should strive to pass on.

Looking at those rocks and thinking about those men made me think of another story I had heard with a similar message:

"And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord." (Joshua 4:5-7a)

Why did they put the rocks there? So their children could look on those stacks and remember what the LORD had given them; so their children would strive to pass that blessing on to future generations.

I love that the Bible specifies here "when your children ask"--not if. Anyone who has ever even been around a child knows that they are wired to ask Why? How come? What for? They are wired to watch us. They are wired to wonder at what we've built for them.

It all begs the question, What "stones" are we leaving for our children to look at?-- Because they are watching and they are wondering. What is it that we're building? Is it something they would be grateful for? Is it something they would strive to preserve and pass on?

I have no idea if my children will choose to take giant road trips with their families when they get older. I have no idea if they'll remember all the miles they've traveled and all the sights they've seen. I have no idea if they'll fully appreciate the historical battlegrounds and monuments and experiences and adventures.

But I'll keep stacking the stones anyway, piling them high in hopeful anticipation that years from now they will be staring at the building blocks of a happy childhood--Something they'll be grateful to have been given and that they'll strive to pass on.