Sister Sharon Samuelson's BYU Devotional speech, "Building Bridges," given on September 6, 2011 is related. She said to the BYU audience,"All of you here today are crossing bridges you did not build but were constructed by others to bless your lives in many ways and circumstances that which are truly remarkable...You are now the architects and project managers of your own bridges which are to be constructed for those who will one day follow you. You must make and follow your own blueprints, secure the best and strongest materials and tools, study and gain the skills and knowledge necessary to complete the project. Your bridges will only endure when well-built."
Those of us who are building Esperanza are building upon the work of those who came before us. We now have a responsibility to act with compassion and courage to build our bridge--a bridge that is well-built that others can cross.
Sharon Samuelson in her speech recited this poem that is so fitting for what we are doing.
THE BRIDGE BUILDER
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim-
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when he reached the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting strength in building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."
-WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE
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