Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Russell Jurgensen
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Recently I experimented with converting wood from fallen trees in our yard to make something that might resemble furniture. The top of this speaker stand is made from golden chain tree (Laburnum) which sands down to a smooth finish. You can probably see how the top is made from strips of wood that were glued together to make a semi-repeating pattern in the grain. This particular wood came from a golden chain tree that fell in a windstorm. The post is made from a mountain ash tree that fell in different windstorm. The base is plain fir plywood. The post and base have stain and the top has only linseed oil.
Sometimes imperfections in wood give it character, and the grain gives a sense of time. We might compare the grain in wood to our lives. As we consider events in our past, we might see things that were bumpy, that we laugh at, that we regret, that we learned from, and that we wish we could have again. But they all form the pattern that makes us unique.
I like to think about the events we learned from, which might be most of them. Maybe we failed, but we learned. What does it take to live carefully, happily, and to get along with other people?
It is also interesting to look at where God may have strengthened us in our journeys. Maybe those are also the knotty areas in the grain.
As we reminisce on the past and think about the future, let’s keep God close to all of our activities.