“Coming Full Square”
First-year Student Bret Rose works on a timber-frame tenon.
Imagine overhearing this snatch of a hyperbolic conversation between Gen Zers:
Billy: “Hey, Johnny, are those new dresser drawers?”
Johnny: “You got it. I built them myself. Trust!”
Billy: “Let’s go!! Wait, you built them? Amaze. Amaze. Amaze!”
Johnny: “Yeah, it was pretty easy once I locked in. They have these things called jam locks.”
Billy: “You mean cam locks?”
Johnny: “Right. Same thing. Hey, can you snap a picture of me with the drawers for my Insta? I’ll share it to my mom on Amazon photos so she can post it on Facebook.”
Johnny’s Dad walks in — this conversation had been taking place in Johnny’s basement bedroom: “Hey there, guys. Johnny, sorry to bug you, but can you please clean up the box and all that foam packaging from the Ikea drawers? Thanks!”
Billy, mouth hanging open in amazement: “These are Ikea?! You didn’t tell me that!” ….. significant pause… “Just when I thought you couldn’t be any more talented, you surprise me again. You know, we should consider starting a furniture-building business.”
Johnny: “That’s fire! When do we start?"
You either have to laugh or cry—or maybe both. Poor Johnny lives in naive obliviousness while his trusty friend Billy at least has the good sense to provide us some facetious (maybe even sarcastic) relief. 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.”
What if you could reverse that problem? What if people not only knew that furniture was made of wood, but actually built furniture? Better yet, what if young men knew that 2×4s came from trees, and had experience of felling and milling them?
Enter, San Damiano College for the Trades!
Beginning August 16, our new students spent two weeks working on the oldest part of our campus—it’s trees. They took trees felled by our faculty member (thank you Carlos Tejeda) from our own 75-acres, used a mobile mill to cut them down to size (thank you Trillium Dell), and created mortise and tenons to build a pavilion that will be completed over the course of the semester (many thanks to Josh Plunk). Our students are coming “full square,” from experience through reflection to knowledge and competence.
It doesn’t stop at the shops, though. The process carries through into the intellectual and spiritual life. Just today we discussed Genesis 1-2:3 in class. Not surprisingly, when I broke the students into groups and challenged them to discover the interior structure or “blueprint” of the creation story, analogies of a construction site, a farm, etc. came to mind. Ultimately, though, we had to ask why God bothers giving man dominion and what that dominion means. When we cut into to the pith of this question, the conversation came full-square back to the recently mortised trees. “Wait, so God is telling man to have dominion over creation the same way He does…by wisely ordering it and making it more and better than it had been before. It’s just like how we’ve been turning the trees into usable lumber and a pavilion.” Without hesitation I can say on behalf of all Gen Z readers out there, “No cap!”
Speaking of coming full-square, as the first-year students were picking up skills, our second-year students were turning their skills toward the wider world. Travis Van Horn and Michael Newton ran a session at the Catholic Land Movement annual conference demonstrating the construction of a mortise and tenon saw-horse.
All this is to say, praise be to God, the model works! God is rebuilding His Church, one burgeoning craftsman at a time!
Thank you to everyone who has put their blood, sweat, and resources behind San Damiano College for the Trades. If you haven’t yet, now’s your chance to help our students come full-square.
“Give orders that the Cedars of Lebanon be cut for me” (1Kgs 5:6).
Students ready to mill native trees from our campus.
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).
45 young men working out their salvation and rebuilding the Church!
“From his shoulders and upward he appeared above all the people” (1 Sam 9:2)
First-year student Edward Palmer actually building bookshelves…no camlocks anywhere.
First-year student Valle Nevarez improves the aesthetic quality of the San Damiano library.
“He has made all things beautiful in their time” (Eccl 3:11)
“Like a householder who brings forth from his treasure both new and old” (Luke 15:32)
Students restoring old desks and chairs during their two-week orientation.
“And Abner said to Joab, ‘let the young men now arise and play before us’” (2 Samuel 2:14)
Households new and old ready themselves to battle for the ominous, hand-carved skull.