Last night we read the parable of the ten virgins and the bridegroom from Matthew 25. Parables are stories meant to teach a lesson. Today’s post in sort of like a parable. While the content is not a story, but rather an excerpt from a “how-to” book, it is designed to get a lesson across.

I am currently reading a book called, Building a Timber Frame House by Tedd Benson. Regardless of why I am reading such a book, I was struck at the contents of one of the chapters. The following are contents from chapter entitled, “The Joiner’s Work Removing Wood.” See if you get my point.

The chapter begins,

“In our shop there are some fine people. Because I have worked closely with them for several years, I am convinced that working wood is only partially the mastery of cutting, shaping, and mortising – the removal of wood. It’s a delicate operation. The tools for the task also include those stored on the inside: feelings and emotions and values. If they are not also maintained with a sharp edge, the result can be a hacking of timber and boredom in the individual. On the other hand, I have observed in the people that quality work is interwoven with quality in the individual, and that one brings a sense of richness and clarity to the other.

One of the great benefits of being in the business of putting houses together is that it has so much to do with people. People need places to live; we are builders. The involvement between ourselves and the people we work for is necessarily deep and personal. Caring about the work being done also means caring for the people these buildings house.

Timbers are heavy and require the hands of several people working together to transform a natural resource into a meaningful structure. In this little ship we have become like brothers. We have learned so much from each other and had such a good time in the process that other kinds of crafts that are more individual would seem monastic in comparison. Part of the gift of each person’s presence hangs lightly in the air, and though not one of us can describe it, it affects us all. Other things we give to each other are specific thoughts and ideas that are cast into the breezes that circle around the shop. They are always there for each person to watch or use, and yet sometimes nobody quite remembers their origin. And it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we have the same goal.

My respect for the people who work here is complete. How good they are with their hands and how quick to respond to new challenge! To work with these people every day is to receive a daily dose of humility, and to learn daily new things: from original ideas in the use of the circular saw to the importance of maintaining a sense of humor, from learning how to ‘put’ a timber in the frame mentally while it is still in the pile, to many valuable lessons concerning the nature of wood. Because of all that I have learned from and all that I feel toward these people, I strongly suggest to those who are beginning that they find co-workers whose goals are the same as their own. The frame will be better. The time spent will be richer.

If the learning and camaraderie we have seem so beneficial, it’s because the element of the human being is so important to timber framing. The world has changed a lot since the days when this building technique was really alive. Some changes are good and some are bad. We should be thankful that so many needs are provided for so efficiently and be saddened by the degree that humans have been removed from their work. In the unwritten commandments that prescribe the morality of the twentieth century, there is one that tells us it is wrong to love our work, for it reduces production speed. In the strict adherence to this commandment, the fact of meaning behind techniques is all but lost. Too many people who build with their hands no longer respond to the rhythm and romance of their work. In this age, life for that person becomes an apology for the fact that machines cannot yet do that task.

Had we lived in the old days, we might have learned this craft from our fathers or spent years in apprenticeship. Values and sensitivities would have been learned instinctively along with the techniques. Without these old masters, it is good that we can learn from each other the subtleties and nuances of tools and wood. And it’s good that we can encourage in each other the pursuit of, instead of resistance to, those magic moments when all the senses we possess are brought to our work.”