99 Stories of God

19. Perhaps a Kind of Cake?

When he was a boy, someone’s great-grandfather told him this story about a traveler in thirteenth-century France.

The traveler met three men wheeling wheelbarrows. He asked in what work they were engaged, and he received from them the following three answers.

The first said: I toil from sunrise to sunset and all I receive for my labor is a few francs a day.

The second said: I’m happy enough to wheel this wheelbarrow, for I have not had work for many months and I have a family to feed.

The third said: I am building Chartres Cathedral.

But as a boy he had no idea what a chartres cathedral was.