Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to

Host: The afternoon sun hung low, a warm, amber halo spilling through the workshop’s high windows. Dust motes floated like lazy planets in the light, spinning above the smell of wood, paint, and effort. Outside, the sound of hammers echoed from a nearby construction site.

Host: Jack stood by a half-finished wooden frame — a modest chicken coop in the making. His hands were stained with sawdust and varnish, his shirt rolled at the sleeves, his expression half focused, half amused. Jeeny sat nearby on an overturned paint bucket, a sketchbook balanced on her knees, watching him with quiet curiosity.

Jeeny: “You really built this?” she asked, running a finger along the edge of a beam. “All this work, for chickens?”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said, hammering another nail in. “The client’s an old woman who keeps hens in her backyard. Said she wanted them to have a ‘proper home.’”

Jeeny: “That’s… sweet.” She smiled. “Frank Lloyd Wright once said, ‘Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.’ You’re living proof of that, I suppose.”

Jack: “I don’t know about that.” He wiped his forehead, leaving a streak of dust. “I just don’t see the point in half-doing anything. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right — even if no one’s watching.”

Host: The hammer paused mid-swing, the air still humming from the echo of his last strike. Outside, a bird called, its voice sharp against the quiet.

Jeeny: “That’s the point though, isn’t it?” she said. “Wright wasn’t just talking about carpentry. He was talking about reverence. About treating the small things with the same respect we give the grand ones.”

Jack: “Reverence,” he muttered. “That’s a fancy word for work ethic.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said, smiling gently. “It’s a word for love.”

Host: Jack turned to look at her, brow furrowing slightly. The sunlight caught in the fine layer of sawdust on his skin, giving him a faint halo, like a tired angel who had traded theology for tools.

Jack: “Love?” he said. “You think love builds chicken coops?”

Jeeny: “I think love builds everything that lasts,” she replied. “A cathedral isn’t sacred because it’s big. It’s sacred because someone cared enough to make it beautiful — down to the last brick. Even if it’s just a coop, even if it’s just wood and nails — care makes it holy.”

Jack: “You sound like a priest.”

Jeeny: “You sound like a man pretending not to believe.”

Host: The conversation drifted like smoke, curling into the quiet. Jack leaned against the workbench, arms crossed, his grey eyes narrowing in thought.

Jack: “See, I think Wright meant something simpler. Efficiency. Integrity of craft. You don’t cheapen your standards just because the job’s small. That’s logic — not faith.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s both,” she said. “Logic gives the structure, faith gives the meaning.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked. A faint breeze entered through the open door, carrying the scent of grass and sun-heated earth. A few chickens clucked from outside, as if eavesdropping on the argument about their future home.

Jack: “You know what bothers me?” he said. “People worship buildings. Cathedrals, skyscrapers, temples — they call them monuments to human achievement. But most of them were built on someone’s broken back. The people who laid the stones never get their names carved into them.”

Jeeny: “And that’s exactly why what you’re doing matters,” she said softly. “Because this — this little coop — no one’s forcing you. No one’s immortalizing you. You’re doing it because it’s right. That’s what Wright meant. That beauty doesn’t belong to grandeur. It belongs to intention.”

Host: Jeeny rose, brushing the dust off her jeans, and walked to the coop, running her hand along its edge. Her fingers paused over a joint — the craftsmanship tight, seamless. She looked impressed, almost moved.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she whispered. “The same hands that could build skyscrapers can build homes for creatures who’ll never know your name.”

Jack: “That’s the beauty of obscurity,” he said. “No applause. No plaque. Just the quiet satisfaction of something done right.”

Jeeny: “And yet,” she said, “isn’t that how all great things start? Someone building something small, with devotion? A cathedral begins with one brick. A revolution with one act of decency.”

Host: Jack set the hammer down. His face softened, the sarcasm fading into something quieter, almost tender.

Jack: “You really believe that, don’t you? That small things can change the world.”

Jeeny: “They always have. Think of Gandhi spinning his own cloth. Think of Rosa Parks refusing to move. Think of Van Gogh painting flowers in poverty. None of them were building cathedrals. But each act was sacred.”

Jack: “And each one suffered for it.”

Jeeny: “Suffering doesn’t make it less sacred. It just makes it real.”

Host: The sun slipped lower, turning the workshop into a mosaic of light and shadow. A beam of gold fell across Jeeny’s face, and in that light, she looked almost like the embodiment of what she was saying — quiet conviction shining through the dust of reality.

Jack: “You know,” he said, picking up a small piece of wood, “when I was in school, I wanted to be an architect. I used to dream about designing towers that touched the sky. I thought the higher the building, the closer to meaning. Now I build sheds and coops. Funny how dreams shrink.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they didn’t shrink,” she said softly. “Maybe they deepened.”

Jack: “Deepened?”

Jeeny: “Yes. When you were younger, you wanted to build cathedrals to be remembered. Now you build homes to be useful. That’s not smaller, Jack — that’s truer.”

Host: The room went still, as if even the air were listening. The light shifted again, fading into the warm hues of late afternoon. A chicken wandered into the doorway, cocking its head curiously at the humans and their moral architecture.

Jack: “So you think this —” he gestured at the coop, “— is as noble as Notre Dame?”

Jeeny: “If it’s built with the same heart, yes.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But cathedrals inspire awe. Coops just hold chickens.”

Jeeny: “Awe isn’t the measure of worth. Kindness is.”

Host: Her words lingered in the air, delicate and firm. Jack didn’t respond immediately. He walked to the coop, touched the frame, and let out a slow breath.

Jack: “You know, maybe Wright was right. Maybe we’ve been measuring greatness upside down. The world celebrates the things that reach the sky, but maybe the things that stay grounded are what hold it together.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.” She smiled. “The sacred is not in the scale, but in the sincerity.”

Host: The last light of the day stretched long across the floor, cutting the workshop into two halves — one of gold, one of shadow. Jeeny’s silhouette leaned into the glow; Jack’s stood half in the dark, half in the light — a quiet metaphor the sun itself seemed to paint.

Jeeny: “Cathedrals crumble,” she said. “Empires fall. But a small act done with care — that survives in ways we never see.”

Jack: “So maybe every nail I drive, every board I plane, is a prayer.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she whispered. “And maybe that’s all prayer ever was.”

Host: The chickens outside clucked again, restless for their new home. Jack smiled faintly, picked up the hammer, and went back to work. The sound of each strike was steady, purposeful — not grand, not glorious, but deeply human.

Host: And as the sunset spread its last color across the walls, it was hard to tell whether they were standing in a workshop or a cathedral — for perhaps, as Wright said, there was no difference at all.