“Coming Full Square”
Previous generations of parents may have shed tears over children not knowing that ketchup came from tomatoes (kind of) or that french fries came from an oblong root vegetable that grows underground; we have the pain of lamenting the fact that most young people have never built or repaired anything they use on a daily basis. There has never been more knowledge about how to build and simultaneously less wisdom and experience of actual building. Ironically, it would seem the availability of information varies inversely with competence. The Circle from experience to knowledge and back to experience has been broken. The ability to see a project through from beginning to end has been lost. Young people no longer take a project full circle—or perhaps in the construction world it’s better to say “full square.”
Not Cut Out for a Bachelor’s Degree
“Flutter, flutter, Thump!”
That’s the sound we heard all throughout May, when a sparrow continually attempted to fly through our basement window. Every hour or so, the same reverberations punctuated the laughter or squalls of children playing at Legos. The image of this sparrow frequently comes to mind when I have conversations about San Damiano College for the Trades. Allow me to elaborate in a light-hearted spirit.
Ideas Aren’t Enough
“Measure twice, cut once, but don’t measure at all if you can avoid it!”
Counter-intuitive words to say the least, but when master Carpenter Norm Abram gives this counsel, he’s both offering sound building advice and pointing us to a profound philosophical, theological truth.
Ambivalent Imitation (AI)
Last week, our good friends’ dangerously cute 2-year-old daughter saw me preparing lunch and cheerfully chirped, “I want a burger!” How could I resist? The only problem…I was making butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
“Catholicism without Christianity”
Odd as it may seem, I just finished reading (okay, listening to) the same book for the second time in the space of a month. With the exception of Dr. Seuss’ Butter Battle Book, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. But when you have the pleasure of two separate, 24-hour road-trips with two of your favorite people, what else ought one do but listen to and discuss a prophetic and frightening yet powerfully edifying dystopian novel?
The Undying Heresy
Our young men are reading Revelation and learning masonry these days! It’s an ironic combination since “revelation” means unveiling and yet we’re also building brick walls. Oh, well, Christianity is full of paradox!
So is Lent. Lent annually unveils my chief heretical tendency—Pelagianism—what I lovingly call the “self-help Gospel.” The picture above explains it all. With each strike of the chisel I make myself a more perfect man, heroically freeing myself from the stone of vice into the unhindered movement of a soul alive with virtue.
But it’s all a lie.
Casket-making 101
How’s this for an idea: What if you began your College life spending two weeks making custom caskets, carving the divine mercy prayer into its oak sides and fashioning an inlaid cross on the lid? What if the smell of wood dust and the sound of hammers on pegs replaced the odor of alcohol and the noise of demonic music? What if the rhythm of sanding smoothed the way for the interior silence necessary for an encounter with God? What if the serious reality of meditating on death with your new friends around a fire in the evening replaced “ice-breakers?” What if no false promises and delusions of grandeur were offered, only the perennial counsel to keep death ever before one’s eyes?