Are you building a monument or scrawling graffiti?

Crusader graffiti on the wall of the Dover Castle Saxon Church (Image credit: John Dahl)

Before moving back to the USA our family was able to do one final European road trip.  We took the ferry from Calais, France to Dover, England, and spent the night there.  The next day we toured the Dover Castle.  It was awesome!  On the walls of the castle church we saw some Crusader graffiti scrawled into the church wall.  These men wanted to leave some sort of mark on the world before heading out into battle.

It got me thinking about our mortality.  We are not guaranteed our next breath.  No one knows what is ahead.  Before we depart we want to leave some sort of legacy that will live on after we’re gone. We only have a few short years in which to impact our world, hopefully for the better.

Some men build grandiose monuments to show how important and impressive they were.  Others scrawl graffiti over those monuments, as a small way of leaving something behind.  This graffiti “shortcut” leaves people more disgusted than impressed.  In our digital world graffiti looks more like online criticism in blog posts and articles.  It has always been easier to deface what someone else has done than to build something that matters.

Men and women of honor build something significant.  Small minded men and women seek to tear it down.  But great men and women realize that the way to leave behind a true legacy is to invest your life into serving others and empowering them to succeed.  Let's invest in the next generation of leaders while we still have time.