If we start with a single brick as our beginning point, then one step up the ladder means ten bricks, one small rectangular patch. Four steps up from our single brick, we reach the number of bricks in the central panel of the chancel at the front of the church. Five or six steps up the ladder from the single brick get us to the number of bricks in the church as a whole. Or if we think of a single human being as our starting point, then four steps up get us to the number of people at Augustana College over the last decade or two. With two or three further steps, or ten to eleven total, we probably reach the number of people who have ever lived.
Time is one more dimension of imaginatively homesteading in the cosmos.
A century ago, homesteaders had to live on their homestead for five years to prove their claim, and thereby actually own their land. This is not much different from the four years of study that it takes nowadays to complete a college degree at Augustana. In proving your claim to your intellectual homestead, some of you may spend a few additional years in graduate or professional school, shaping your career so that it truly belongs to you. If we take one heartbeat as our starting point, then eight steps upward take us through the college years. Eleven steps from the single heartbeat take us back to the dawn of human civilization.