We’re Building a Cathedral! (2)

During the construction of the great cathedral at Chartres the Cardinal sent his Bishop to investigate a prolonged period of limited progress. He decided to ask 3 workers at random, what they were doing. 

The first was a draftsman so preoccupied by minute details he could only state he was measuring column lengths for the cathedral’s sacristy. 

The second was a stone mason chiseling gargoyles.

‘Just making gargoyles – it takes me years to finish one. I’ve made dozens so far. They go up there somewhere. That’s someone else’s job.’

The last was a elderly sweeper – whose task was simply to keep the floor clear of dust and debris. 

The Bishop knew the floor sweeper would not live to see the completion of the Cathedral. Yet he looked up from his monotonous job, looked to the high pillars under construction and proudly proclaimed: ‘I’m building a cathedral!’

And so are we. 

Families are a little like the archetypal floor cleaner. We’re raising a cathedral. Our cathedral is equally lofty – a good life for every person with a disability and their family. 

To help us prepare for the next set of challenges we want to step back and create a common history of efforts by families to date; to learn from other social movements and to analyze the way forward. 

We have created a new WIKI – The Family Movement as the ‘cathedral’ to develop and preserve our history. (The link to the Wikipedia entry is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Movement )

Feel free to contribute directly or to share your thoughts in blogs, on
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