Thinking Like a Piece of Wood

I encourage any who might be interested to pursue woodworking. There is something about taking a piece of raw material like a tree and transforming it into an object of practical or artistic use that seems to complete the person who does it. The number of people I've helped in the matter of building stuff probably numbers in the hundreds if you count the many school students I've had the privilege to work with over the years. Although some seem to have better innate skills than others, everyone can have success at some level. The only necessary ingredient is an honest desire to figure out what needs to be done. There is no substitute for a genuine sense of curiosity and willingness to go get another board when the one being worked on turns out wrong.

There's no denying that wood is inanimate and, although it was once a growing, living thing, it is quite content to allow the woodworker to cut, plane, drill, whittle or whatever until it becomes the proper shape and size to do what is needed. The difficulty arises when we fail to take into account the very nature of wood itself. Working wood requires that one thinks like a piece of wood. That's not quite as silly as it first sounds. What is that piece of wood going to do if I try to chisel out a groove in that place? is the kind of question we ask as we begin to think like a piece of wood. Knowing how a piece of wood thinks is not unlike considering how people think and just like people, different pieces of wood may think quite differently from another. Some wood is harder than others. Some is more split resistant. Some is better at being glued together. Being familiar with the wood with which we work enables us to come to think like the wood.

It would appear that there is an analogy here in thinking like another person. Heaven knows, we have some real difference of thought right now in the people we encounter. Working with another person closely enough to think the way they think is essential if we hope to have civil discourse about matters of which we think differently. We are all rather quick to let one another know, "what I think". Being effective in human relations is quite a bit like woodworking in that until we take the time to know others and "what they think" and, more importantly, why they think that, especially, if their thoughts differ from our own, we are left with a pile of splinters.

Each of us has come into being and have what we have by the grace of our Creator. If we believe that we are loved by that Creator to the extent that He sacrificed His Son for us and that the Son is the only example of how we are to live, then we owe it to one another to think like one another. Being a carpenter, Jesus knew how to think like a piece of wood. More importantly, He knew how to think like the people he encountered. We have been charged to love one another. That can not happen unless we become familiar enough with one another to think like one another and agreeing to seek His righteousness
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Board? Sure. Bored? Never.

At Out of the Woodwork, the ministry of woodworking that has been going on for several years now, there is a lot of lumber that comes into the shop and gets turned into practical (usually) items. The transition from a board (or sometimes a pile of them) to a usable item can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks. Although we try to schedule extra time if possible, we regularly meet in the shop only twice a week, three hours each time. So the process from board to whatever can take quite awhile. This seems to work for the folks who keep showing up and the virtue of patience is pretty much in evidence. A good outcome of this work awhile and then come back later allows for considerable thinking to go on between sessions, usually resulting in a better end product than if it was done for eight hours every day.

The thinking that surrounds woodworking is almost as rewarding as the woodworking itself. That thinking may start as early as when a board is first run through the planer (often the first step in making rough lumber into usable boards). Checking to see what that finished surface looks like often changes ones mind about how the board will be used. The fact that most boards have a look all their own and the shape of knots and grain pattern say, "Use me for that table top," or  "Wouldn't I look great in the middle of a cutting board?". Amazing how an inanimate thing like wood can stir the circuitry in this computer we call a brain. Each time that happens, another project idea comes to mind and soon sketches and drawings are made so the idea doesn't get lost in that computer's overworked hard drive.

I have reached that uncomfortable age where I'm pretty sure the projects I have in mind (or on paper due to the aforementioned overworked hard drive)  are too numerous for the years I have left. I suppose this could be considered a somber idea, knowing you will die with some things definitely worth doing being undone. But that is not the way to look at the situation. We are assured that we know not the time we will leave our earthly existence and we have been blessed to create a lot of projects with the material we have been given. Knowing that the ideas for things to do will outlast the time we have in which to do them means no boredom, no thinking, "There's nothing to do," And when the projects are ended, there should be no sadness for any woodworker or anyone else who has placed their trust in Jesus Christ. He has promised us an eternity of being with Him, in happiness beyond anything we can imagine. At this point I can't imagine something more pleasing than turning a tree into a table. I think Jesus understands that. After all, He is a carpenter. Do you suppose He has a woodworking shop in that eternal place He has promised?