Deconstructing Designs: When A New Way Just Comes to You

When you quit thinking about the problem and how to solve it, the answer just comes to you.

Some years ago, I decided to graduate from tailgate camping to backpacking. In preparation, I began been assembling the gear I’d need for my excursion. One of the most important parts of my cook kit was the stove—and I decided to build my own.

You can spend as much money as you want on complicated and expensive canister systems. Yet, the ultralight backpackers I talked with preferred alcohol stoves. They’re lightweight. They’re simple. They work. They cost virtually nothing. You can make an alcohol stove out of a used cat food, soda, or tuna can. Alcohol stoves burn ethanol (denatured alcohol), methanol, or 96% or purer isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. You can also burn Everclear in them, but why waste good moonshine?

For Fun and Pyromania

I began experimenting with building my own alcohol stoves. Looking up other people’s designs is informative. Zen and the Art of the Alcohol Stove is the best website that I have found. But it does take a certain knack if you want to make one yourself out of recycled or reused parts.

I built a stove out of a soda can–it didn’t work at all. I built a stove out of a cat food can–it didn’t work, either. I built one out of a tuna can–it worked okay, but it looked horrible. I felt like giving up and buying a one-burner propane stove instead.

Then, one day I was washing dishes, not thinking about anything, and I looked at the drain plug. Now THAT looked like an alcohol stove! I pulled off the plunger… (This is a picture of an intact one next to the one I disassembled)

…found a pickle jar lid and some old insulation…

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..set the insulation in the upturned jar lid so the insulation would now serve as a wick…

…pushed the drain strainer down on top of the insulation and lid and popped it perfectly into place…

…and made my very own alcohol stove for next to nothing! All I had to do was squirt alcohol into the insulation before I lit the stove. I used HEET 28201 Gas-Line Antifreeze and Water Remover (in the yellow bottle). It worked beautifully, with blue flames barely visible in the daylight blooming like a flower out of the holes in the inverted sink drain strainer.

Here’s a picture of the stove with a pot sitting on it. You can just use your imagination and picture the blue flames jetting up through the holes in the strainer, licking up at the bottom of the pot. One sturdy, cheap, very functional alcohol stove that’s fairly attractive (for what it is). More than most alcohol stoves can claim.

When a Plan Comes Together

It was so easy that it just seemed to fall right together. No punching or drilling holes in metal. No trying to keep cans you’re working on from crumpling or cutting you. Here was the perfect size and shape of metal frame in my hand already–and there in the fridge was a pickle jar with only brine left in it, the perfect size lid to fit my drain plug. And there in the basement was a bit of insulation ready to hand. No tools, no effort–just a great simple stove that took thirty seconds to assemble.

This whole thing got me thinking about life and faith–how sometimes I struggle to follow somebody else’s pattern, and how often it doesn’t work. Not always because their design is flawed, but because it just wasn’t made for me. Christians often struggle with their faith and enter a time of deconstruction because they’ve been trying to live up to other people’s expectations that never fit them in the first place. They form their faith according to their parents’ or pastors’ designs, instead of finding what works for them. They give it their best but often feel like throwing up their hands and abandoning the project altogether. They’ve found all the ways it doesn’t work…

But then, serendipity happens! The Holy Spirit whispers to your heart and shows you something entirely different. Things just fall into place, with no fuss and no trouble. Everything just works, and it’s beautiful. And it’s so simple that even the people who were busy telling you how you should have done it stand by and gape, like the religious leaders who just couldn’t believe Jesus’ simple way.

When Doing Nothing Does Something

Faith shouldn’t have to be a feat of engineering. It should just come to you gently and simply, like the Spirit’s breath within you. In fact, it’s often when you’re doing something mindless like cutting the grass or doing dishes, that flashes of inspiration hit you. Taoists call this wu wei, which means “non-doing,” or “doing nothing.” It happens when you let yourself be inspired rather than struggling in your own strength. When you quit thinking about the problem and how to solve it, the answer just comes to you. That’s how the Spirit works.

So, if you need a good alcohol stove that you can make in 30 seconds for only $2.99, this is the one for you. I hope it’ll help you on your next backpacking trip. And if you need your heart warmed, I hope that this little story about a stove will inspire you to quit trying to follow someone else’s design for your life and faith. If it’s not meant for you, it will never work anyway. Deconstruct what doesn’t work. Stop struggling and simply trust God’s Holy Spirit to lead you. Go with the flow, as they say. Let the Spirit set your heart on fire.

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They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

– Luke 24:32 NIV