I was reading about Abraham, the biblical patriarch. He was a very rich and powerful man having direct influence over hundreds of people. This could only be because he significant management skills. But he was a man, a human, just like the rest of us. He had two legs, two arms, a nose, etc.
He was a person like you are a person, like Barack Obama is a person. As people we can speak with each other. Put any two of us in a room and we can have a conversation. One or the other of us can speak and the other can listen. We can each share alternate times of speaking and listening.
I can envision an enriching time of conversation where the person in the "superior" position does not look down on the other. And the person of the "inferior" position is not awed by the other. Each can enjoy the conversation as equal partners. There is a flaw in the relationship when either one demonstrates a weakness: either by feeling superior or being overcome with awe. After all, the other in the conversation is another person, not a god or a dog.
I enjoy having engaging conversations. I'd like to think Abraham or the President would be the sort of man who would do this.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
BASEMENT ROCK
My Mother loved plants and had them all over the house. So my Father built her a greenhouse. It was attached to the back of the 66 South Street house, under the Sun Room. There was a head-high crawl space under the Sun Room which had a door to the outside. He built the greenhouse just outside, and surrounding, this outside door.
The crawl space's other walls were the foundation walls upholding the main house. There was no door from the crawlspace into the cellar. This was not handy because there was no inside path from the house to the greenhouse. So my Father decided to punch a door opening in the cellar wall. To say the word "punch" is much easier than the task he set for himself for the walls were composed of heavy boulders dragged down from the North by the Pleistocene glaciers.
I helped my Father on this task. Very patiently he used a couple of large pry bars, assorted pieces of scrap lumber, and short lengths of pipe to extract a large boulder from the wall (3'x3'x3'), roll it through the cellar and out the back cellar door, out of the back yard to the street, around to the front of the house (uphill), to the front door of the house, turn it and place it just right so that a flat surface of the boulder made a tread of one of the front steps. He then used other rubble from the cellar-to-crawl space opening to construct the other steps.
He was not afraid to do things he had never done before. He did not back off a job because he did not have training or previous experience for the task. He made do with what was available for the work. He thought about what had to be done, and then he did it. From watching him I knew I could do this too. I guess I thought all men are supposed to be this way.
If you have the time and resources there is probably no job too hard for you. Maybe you already have the resources.
The crawl space's other walls were the foundation walls upholding the main house. There was no door from the crawlspace into the cellar. This was not handy because there was no inside path from the house to the greenhouse. So my Father decided to punch a door opening in the cellar wall. To say the word "punch" is much easier than the task he set for himself for the walls were composed of heavy boulders dragged down from the North by the Pleistocene glaciers.
I helped my Father on this task. Very patiently he used a couple of large pry bars, assorted pieces of scrap lumber, and short lengths of pipe to extract a large boulder from the wall (3'x3'x3'), roll it through the cellar and out the back cellar door, out of the back yard to the street, around to the front of the house (uphill), to the front door of the house, turn it and place it just right so that a flat surface of the boulder made a tread of one of the front steps. He then used other rubble from the cellar-to-crawl space opening to construct the other steps.
He was not afraid to do things he had never done before. He did not back off a job because he did not have training or previous experience for the task. He made do with what was available for the work. He thought about what had to be done, and then he did it. From watching him I knew I could do this too. I guess I thought all men are supposed to be this way.
If you have the time and resources there is probably no job too hard for you. Maybe you already have the resources.
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