I am not what anyone would consider a handyman.  Rarely have I crafted anything that was useful or pleasing to the eye.  In fact, if you put a hammer in my hand and ask me to pound a nail, most likely you will soon hear a squealing yell (and possibly some other words that ought never to graze the lips of a human being).  My hands have not been blessed with dexterity, but rather they are shaky and more likely to break something than to fix it.

I remember the TV show “Home Improvement” that stared Tim Allen during the nineties.  What was hilarious about this program was that Tim ‘the tool-man’ Taylor (as he was called) was constantly overestimating his abilities and often paid for it with a trip to the emergency room.  In fact, the nurses and doctors in the ER knew him on a first name basis!  The difference between me and ‘the tool-man’ is that I know that I am not too handy, whereas he continuously tried to prove just how skilled he was.

Now when it comes to my own attempts at handiwork, I do not remember having any major accomplishments.  The foremost piece of work that I have ever constructed took place at my grandparents’ home in the country when I was about ten years old.  As a child, I can remember a summer when I played with a younger cousin almost daily.  One day we decided that we wanted a fort, so we sought out materials and started to build.  This would be a place where young boys could pretend to be barbaric men.

The structure was built in such a way that the core wall was a wood fence that separated the main part of the property from the field.  Then, in order to create sturdy walls, we took three pallets and created a box like shape, leaving a small space open to serve as an entrance and exit.  The roof would end up being a piece of scrap metal that we found near a burn pile.  This was our fortress, and we had built it without any help from the adults.  What an accomplishment we had made; our fort was very good.  We spent the next couple of months penning an exclusive creed, and making sure that the younger kids in the family were afraid to intrude our fort.

Unfortunately, in the months that followed, the fortress became a breeding ground for black widow spiders and Dalmatian puppies.  If we did not fear entrance because of venom, we definitely found it inconvenient to maneuver around all of the dog poop.  The fortress that was meant for one purpose soon was being used for something totally different.  Our hands had built something great, but eventually, it all had come to nothing.

As we look around us, at the environment in which we live, it is amazing to ponder the hands that created it all.  The greatest of structures do not even compare to the monument of the natural world.  If you have never stopped and reflected on the hands that formed the world; next time you are at the beach, stand with your ankles immersed and look out into the horizon.  Or next time you are up in the mountains, find a lookout point early in the morning and observe the haze as it vaporizes and reveals a luscious green canyon filled with redwoods.  Maybe when you look through the glass that [Read more...]