Little by Little

As many of you know, I have been working my way through a recuperation process. It has been a long time with many minor steps. I am still in the middle of it, but the doctors tell me that I can once again enter my shop a little at a time. I must be careful because the problem I have involves bleeding and over-exercise could result in its recurrence.

Because of this, I have had to devise a set of small steps to beginning back again. Each step must be self-encapsulated and short. Fortunately, I developed an analogous process in another job I held. I was a pastor of one, two or three small churches at one time. This task involves an extreme sensitivity to the information coming over the telephone. When it rings, one must be able to go where it tells him or her. This means that whatever is being worked on – usually, sermon preparation – takes a back seat to the needs of the moment. Come Sunday morning, however, and that sermon had to be ready.

I had to develop a procedure in this preparation where I could leave it at any time and pick it up when I came back with the minimum of disruption. In order to do this, I developed a set of steps that repeated from week to week even though the verses changed. For me, the sermon was an explanation and application of what the Bible said. This meant translating the verses out of the original Greek or Hebrew, finding what seemed to be the central message and then outlining and writing a sermon. I developed these steps to a degree where I could leave and return fairly effortlessly and set my mind and heart on what I was doing relative to the particular phone call or visit.

It turns out that furniture building is structured much the same way. I have decided to read some materials that may broaden my mind in my understanding of design and construction. By oscillating back and forth between this work and my building process I can go forward in the same way as my life in general progresses: little by little.