THE GOOD, THE BAD
AND THE GODLY

About 15 volunteers worked from 7:30 until 3 p.m. on a recent Saturday, building a retaining wall to prepare our local Zintel Canyon Greenway for better public access.

Without a backhoe, we had to do the earthwork by hand. We dug down about 16 inches for 120 feet, then filled the trench nearly full with gravel we had to bring from a quarter mile away.

Then we had to position nearly 900 75-pound landscape blocks. We hauled water from the creek and mixed mortar for the top layer of block to discourage vandalism. Then we backfilled as much as we could by shovel.

By 3 p.m. we were exhausted. All we had eaten during the day were a couple of donuts, and we had failed to drink enough water. I felt I was about to collapse, and I could see the others felt the same.

But despite how tired we were feeling, we were very proud of our work. Indeed, one of our volunteers who had not worked on any of the previous Zintel projects decided to bring his family the next day to show them what we had accomplished.

As they walked over a ridge in view of the wall, his heart sank as he saw hundreds of blocks strewn across the roadway. Vandals had toppled 40 percent of the wall just hours after it was completed.

All who worked on that and similar projects felt similar discouragement as we heard the news, but we were back out the next Wednesday to rebuild the wall, this time using Liquid Nails on the top layers of block rather than mortar and then backfilling much better than we had before.

The police, meanwhile, were hot on the trail of the vandals.

Many other Zintel Canyon projects had been destroyed by the gang of vandals previously. About a dozen benches have been destroyed, and more than 100 young trees have been torn out by the roots.

It occurred to me that the Zintel Canyon Greenway Project, developed over the past five years by 20,000 hours of volunteer efforts, could be seen as a microcosm of life.

There are three kinds of people in the world. The builders, the destroyers and the viewers.

The "builders" are people who devote their lives to selflessly making this world a better place for everyone.

The builders include not just charitable volunteers, but also devoted spiritual leaders, educators, public servants, entrepreneurs, inventors and scientists who are driven by their vision to put in thousands of unpaid hours.

The "destroyers" are people, like vandals, who find some kind of perverted pleasure in tearing down everything good and positive and wholesome.

The destroyers don't just vandalize public projects; they tear down people, as well. They lack long-term goals, empathy and self-esteem.  And they want to make others as miserable as themselves.

While they are pleasure-oriented, they tend to be enslaved to self-destructive habits, as well: drugs, tobacco, alcohol, promiscuity -- anything that provides immediate gratification and short-sighted pleasure at the expense of long-term health, progress and happiness.

The "viewers" are those who, if accused of being Christians, could not be convicted by witnesses to their daily lives. They are good people, in the sense that they do little harm to others, but they mostly watch life go by without having any impact on the outcome.

Indeed, they frequently are absorbed literally by the excessive viewing of TV or by escape to meaningless pastimes and recreational activities. None of these activities may be bad, in and of themselves, but by their very nature, the viewers prefer to watch others become heroes while they themselves enjoy the daily blessings of life.

Numerous scriptures reflect these same three categories of people.

In the Book of Revelations the resurrected Lord spoke directly to early Christians in this third category: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Revelations 3:15-17).

Before his death, Christ gave the parable of the three stewards. A man traveling to a far country had given three servants a sum of money, measured in "talents," to care for while he was gone. When he returned, two had doubled their Lord's money, but the third had hidden his stewardship in the ground for fear of losing it.

The Lord rewarded the first two stewards, saying to each, "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of the lord."

But to the third servant, the ruler said: "Thou wicked and slothful servant…. Take the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. … And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness" (Matthew 25:14-30).

God is a builder. He builds worlds, and he helps his children mature into his image.

May we be wise stewards of our time, our talents and our resources. And may we be builders of a better world, builders of the people around us, and builders of God's Kingdom on Earth.