One of my favorite spots in all of England is a little stone cottage in the “Lake District” that was once owned by Beatrix Potter. It’s a charming 300 year old cottage, with attached barn, slate roof, and low beamed ceilings that require a reverent nod of the head as you pass from one room to the next.
The fields that surround the cottage are a checker board of stone walls and slate paths that run from village to village. Dry-stone walling has suddenly become hip in this country, but there are stone walls in England that date well before the birth of Christ. These walls are built without cement or mortar and are held together only by their own weight. In a dry-stone wall all of the stones tilt slightly downward, like roof tiles, so that water can drain out of the wall.The pebbles and rock chips placed in the wall’s center are packed tightly, giving the structure critical strength.
Dry-stone walls are far superior to their modern cement counterparts. A well built stone wall can stand intact, without need of repair , for 200 years or more — many times the life span of a cemented wall. Dry-stone walls shift and bend in order to conform to the natural movements of the land, the frost heaves, the sinkholes, the settlings in the rainy seasons. Like giant sumo wrestlers they are an odd combination of massive weight and delicate flexibility.
If these stones could speak, there is much they could tell us about life. People who have no flex or bend do not fair well in our world. The earth beneath our feet is always changing, growing, becoming. We need to bend our knees and move with it, if we are to remain an upright and effective force in the lives of our children and our children’s children.
If people can learn, then perhaps a church can learn something from a dry-stone wall as well. In this day in which the Christian community is shifting, sliding and splintering, we ought to take a look at the technique that can give us strength and stability. We ought to be a Dry-stone Church.
Many who fear the demise of the church in our generation think we need some sort of cement to bind us together and stop the erosion of all we hold near and dear. But the truth is our church is stronger with out cement or glue. We need to put ourselves in the hands of the “master builder” if we are to stand the test of time. He has shaped us to fit where we are needed. We don’t have to hold up the whole wall, we need only support the stones that “settle in” around us.
WHK