Email #41: Construction/Destruction (10/14/16)

Construction is hard.

Creating something of lasting value is never easy and the journey of that creation is usually traveled over a long and often winding road.

Great skyscrapers, hotels, bridges and subway systems require years and often decades of detailed planning and perseverance.  Great, enduring relationships are the same way. No relationship between partners or friends or siblings or colleagues simply springs from the earth. You don’t meet a guy in a bar on Tuesday and make him best man at your wedding on Saturday. (Unless you’re in Vegas.) You take time to learn about people, who they are and what they want, how you’ll both fit in the landscape of each other’s lives.

Destruction, on the other hand, is easy and swift. It usually happens in a moment.  A comment can end a friendship. A tornado can decimate a town. It’s far easier to be a movie critic than a movie director.

Think about the number of years and amount of manpower it took for the construction of Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey.

Then, in a few moments, destruction. A tragic train malfunction destroyed parts of the century-old structure and took a life.

Areena is construction. We recognize achieving our ultimate goal – a better world – will require men across the country to change how they live. This won’t happen overnight. But with every food pantry shelf built, every young man mentored, every meal served to a needy family, we will be another step further along that long and winding road.