Then the LORD said to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts, to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you.  -Exodus 31:1-6

     Maslow's hierarchy of needs teaches us how important other people are in motivating us to accomplish tasks.  But where do we draw our motivation when our work is done out of sight of other people?  Every stay-at-home mother, every road-warrior salesperson, every sole proprietor or small-business employee or small town pastor can appreciate the isolation William Walker must have felt:

     Utterly alone, at the bottom of a fourteen-foot trench filled with water so thick with silt he literally couldn't see his hand in front of his face, William Walker laid 25,000 bags of concrete, slitting each bag open so the concrete could spread out as it set.  He then used 115,000 concrete blocks and 900,000 bricks to shore up the national treasure we know as Winchester Cathedral.

     Every morning, five mornings a week, fifty weeks a year, for six years and one month, from 1905 to 1911, Walker would climb into his diver's suit and wait while his assistants loaded forty pound stones over his shoulders and placed a fifty-pound metal helmet over his head.  Then he would step into 18-pound metal shoes and descend into the depths of the trench around Winchester Cathedral to work for three and a half hours.  After lunch, he would go through the ritual again in order to work another three and a half hours in the pitch dark completely alone. 

     Incredibly, the majestic structure that thrills people even today with its remarkable architecture had been built on a bog, floating on what Sir Francis Fox called a "raft" of massive beech timbers.  As the timbers rotted, the mighty building started to sag.

     It isn't stretching things at all to say William Walker single-handedly saved Winchester Cathedral.

     Since the water swirled in and out of sites where bubonic plague victims had been buried centuries earlier, Walker also had to worry about exposure to life-threatening infectious materials and the possibility of encountering floating skeletal remains.  His response: "I try not to think too much about that."

     So, day in and day out, week in and week out, year end and year out, Walker fought to save a structure built by long-dead humans to honor a still-living God.

     What a magnificent story!

     Sadly, several twists in history and one colossal case of stubborn institutional pride would make Walker's labors even more anonymous for nearly a century.

     William Walker would be one of the millions and millions of people felled by the flu pandemic that swept the world in 1918.  When a sculptor finally sat down to craft a monument to Walker that would rest in the Cathedral as a thank you, the sculptor used a photo of the wrong man!  The Church of England, embarrassed by its' error, refused to correct it for almost ninety years.

     Blissfully, William Walker knew something most of us have yet to learn; or, having once learned it, find ourselves needing to be reminded again and again and again.  It isn't adoration or statues or even the satisfaction of a job well done that is God's gift to His children:

     It's the work itself!

     Hard as it is to imagine, even those things we do in the places nobody sees; even when we're weighed down by heavy trials; even when we don't have the joy of the company of coworkers; the labor we're engaged in is God's gift to us, and ours back to Him.

     Let the independent contractor rejoice.  Let the stay-at-home mother exult.  Let the coal miner and architect and school teacher glory in their labor, for God in His infinite wisdom has given us the chance to play a role in shoring up the foundations of a Creation built to last forever.

     One day, when every knee is bowed and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord, every dark hour, every tedious task, every ounce of effort given by God's children to the tending of His Cathedral will see the light of day. 

     In that instant, we will know His pleasure, and will count it as great treasure that He let us be a small part of His big work.

--Randy Kilgore

rkkcak@aol.com