My workshop reveals the operating principles of my life. Aside from the tools – almost any time I go to Canadian Tire I find another tool that I simply MUST have – I have shelves and shelves with boxes and boxes filled of bits and pieces that I might be able to use someday.
Several plastic bins of salvaged nuts and bolts. A carton of used castors, assorted sizes. A collection of light bulbs for cars and flashlights. Drawers with partly used tubes of epoxy glue. Bags of telephone cords.
I’m not obsessive about hoarding, though. I don’t save worn-out brake pads. Or old-style screw-in fuses, in case we should ever move back to a 1940s house. Or pieces of string too short to use.
And, unlike my father, I don’t save cheque stubs from 30 years ago.
I don’t fit in a social culture that expects to buy whatever’s needed, when it’s needed. I believe in making do with what I have.
Childhood indoctrination
I realized where this attitude came from, when I was asked recently to do a talk about books that had influenced me as a child. Robinson Crusoe, for example. And its imitator, The Swiss Family Robinson. Treasure Island. Ernest Thompson Seton’s books about wood lore. Enid Blyton’s Railway Children.
Perhaps most influential, the Arthur Ransome series, about English kids turned loose for summer holidays in the Lake District – and in later books, around the world – with no adult supervision! In the first book, Swallows and Amazons, the oldest was a boy of twelve, the youngest seven. Unthinkable today. But in the 1930s, that was apparently quite acceptable parenting.
And I realized that all of these books had a common theme -- making do with what you have. Crusoe couldn’t run to the nearest Canadian Tire store for a package of nails. Seton’s boy heroes didn’t have a Mountain Equipment Co-op handy for bows and arrows.
Prevailing attitudes
In hindsight, that “making do” theme seems to have shaped my life. I have maintained cars rather than trade them. I have, sometimes, sustained dormant friendships instead of seeking more famous friends. Even in my working years as an editor, I often preferred to improve, even to rewrite, manuscripts I had received, rather than reject them and solicit better written texts from better known authors.
As the saying goes, “A bird in the hand…”
I have even left some organizations when their working ethos shifted from “making do” to “pay for getting it done.” I get queasy when any institution’s primary goal becomes fund-raising, not service.
And perhaps that’s also why I have stayed with the same church since I was a child, despite disappointments and frustrations. Even, on occasion, feeling personally rejected.
I value what I learn about other faiths. But I’m not going to discard what I have for something new. Every religion has its own baggage, its own boxes of nuts and bolts that were valuable once, even if they no longer fit any current situations.
Put another way, I have no desire to abandon the junk I know, for the junk someone else has accumulated.
I’d rather work from within, as I can, to influence my church’s theology, to move it forward.
I’d rather make do with what I have.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved. To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
In last week’s column, I mused about whether dogs dream. Ted Wilson responded, “Of course they do.” Ted described his relationship with his fourth Chesapeake Bay Retriever: “You don’t ‘own’ a Chessie; you share your life with them. My kids gave me my 4th Chessie for my last birthday. Ginger, like all of the rest, came with a sense of humour and I am her favourite target.”
Several readers sent stories of animal’s mental processes.
Tom Watson spent seven weeks at his daughter's farm in rural Manitoba. “Their farming operation includes three border collie dogs -- Ace, Piper and Tucker. Those dogs are not only smart but crave human connection. I couldn't help but grow pretty fond of them over those seven weeks...and their actions indicated they grew fond of me as well.
“Suddenly, on Tuesday, I bid them each goodbye -- something I found touching. As we drove off down the road, I wondered what they might be thinking. Might it be, ‘Where did those folks suddenly go?’ And, maybe, ‘Will they come back?’
“A clue perhaps is this: Toward supper time, my son-in-law wondered where Tucker was. He finally found him -- lying beside the chair where I always sat at the farm dining table.”
Caroline Davidson wrote about cats: “My mother's cat died of old age and my brother took it to his tree farm many miles away to bury it among many trees.
“A long time later, my brother missed his own older cat. He walked through his forest looking, and realized he was coming near the burial spot of his mother's cat. There on the pile of needles and old leaves was his cat, dead. He had come to the cat burial ground.
“Cats and other animals know many things that we, the dominant species, have forgotten or put aside for later thinking.”
Peter Scott invoked another animal: “Thank you, on behalf of my bovine friends, for recognizing that cows can think. Recently I was caring for a friend's cows while he was away for a week. After a few days the steer would come and sniff my hand while I was putting feed in the trough, but the heifer only eyed me suspiciously from the far side of the pen. If they were people we might say that the steer was an extrovert and the heifer an introvert -- but to use those categories for cows might make us uncomfortable eating steak. We like to think that our steak was magically born in a plastic wrapper in the back of the supermarket.”
Isabel Gibson pondered dreams in general: “Dreaming or not, our brains are active while we sleep. I've woken up with solutions to problems, and ideas for new projects -- a common experience, I'm sure. It's as if there are other people in there -- mostly younger, for sure! -- who work while I sleep.
“Maybe one of the things beyond ourselves that we can benefit from meeting is the other person(s) inside ourselves.”
Mary Collins’ comments on language prompted two further responses.
Fran Ota wrote about the use of “I” in writing: “Japanese I speak , and although there is a word for ‘I’, one rarely uses it at all, because it's identified in the rest of the sentence. Here in the west, we have become so conscious of using ‘I’ too much, and thus sounding egotistical, that we seem to be dropping it altogether (and I'm guilty of this as well.). So we have something like ‘Went to the store today. Had a fascinating experience.’ It works in Japanese, but not in English, I think.”
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
I seem to have only one paraphrase of Psalm 112, the psalm for this coming Sunday. Here it is.
1 Those who trust God's wisdom,
who are willing to learn God's ways,
will never be ground down by the troubles they encounter.
2 They will be able to speak of their children with pride;
they will receive respect from all.
3 Their influence will extend far beyond their own circles.
4 In trials and tribulations, God will give them help --
but not before they require it,
or they might rely on themselves instead of God.
5 In return, God expects them to share their skills and talents generously,
to treat everyone fairly,
to lighten the loads of sufferers.
6 Because they know who and what they are,
their heads are not turned by every trend and fad.
7 They are not broken by bad news.
8 Misfortune does not destroy them,
for they weigh their worth upon other scales.
9 Whatever they have, they use for the common good;
When they die, they are remembered with gratitude.
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
• Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
• Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
• Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
• Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
• Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net
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TECHNICAL STUFF
If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.
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My webpage is up and running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and about five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca
I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
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