Today's the day when in 2001 the leaning Tower of Pisa reopened, after a team of experts had spent 11 years strengthening the tower without eliminating its famous lean. During its original construction in the 12th century its foundation began to sink into the soft, marshy ground causing it to lean to one side. The quick-thinking builders tried to compensate for the lean by making the top stories slightly taller on one side. However, the weight of the extra stonework they needed to do this only made the tower sink further. (Just think what a great episode of Rogue Traders that would have made!)
Anyway, by the twentieth century the tower, 190 feet tall, leaned a dramatic15 feet off the perpendicular. Incredibly, in the year before it closed for repairs over a million visitors climbed the 293 weathered steps to the top.
The Tower of Pisa is a rare example of a building being famous for its poor foundations. You can be sure that almost every other building standing on dodgy foundations has not lasted long. The first rule of building is that you need something solid to build on. When it comes to building our lives, Jesus tells us there is nothing more solid than his words. This is what he says in Matthew 7:
Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
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