This week Daniel and I have been working on a new remodeling project. It is an old apartment building downtown Minneapolis that is being turned into a duplex. My company has been hired to make the building's two old staircases straight. In some places the steps differ 2" (5cm) from left to right. There is quite a bit of work to be done jacking the old staircase stringers up and strengthening them with new support.
Old and dry wood needs a lot of pressure and TIME to get back into a straight shape. One cannot just quickly force it in place. Though it is tempting with my new 20ton jacks...Too much too fast on the hydraulic jacks and the stringers shatter! The creaks and cracks are scary...but necessary. It is almost as if they speak to you. They say, "creak - I can take a little more" and "crack - too much, ease up on the jack!"
Sitting under the staircase and slowly jacking up the stressed and creaking stringers made me think about Noah. I chuckled to myself as I imagined the pressure he must have been under! Save the world and all the land animals. Talk about pressure! I wonder if he ever got tired of swinging a hammer? Putting too much pressure on himself I bet Noah both creaked and cracked at times.
Old and dry wood needs a lot of pressure and TIME to get back into a straight shape. One cannot just quickly force it in place. Though it is tempting with my new 20ton jacks...Too much too fast on the hydraulic jacks and the stringers shatter! The creaks and cracks are scary...but necessary. It is almost as if they speak to you. They say, "creak - I can take a little more" and "crack - too much, ease up on the jack!"
Sitting under the staircase and slowly jacking up the stressed and creaking stringers made me think about Noah. I chuckled to myself as I imagined the pressure he must have been under! Save the world and all the land animals. Talk about pressure! I wonder if he ever got tired of swinging a hammer? Putting too much pressure on himself I bet Noah both creaked and cracked at times.
How much pressure to get better at what we are doing, get healthier and get wealthier can we take before we crack or maybe even shatter? I wonder if I am creaking enough or if I am already cracking and need to ease up on the jack? I don't know.
I guess I am still learning the lesson of Noah and taking my time to deal with the pressures of life. He took at least 450+ years to finish the Ark project. Think about it, he could have very well planted the trees that he used for lumber to build the last two stories of the ark! He had both patience and persistence.
Somebody once said that, "anything worth doing takes time". Getting better, healthier and wealthier are things most of us strive for. I will have to to be patient and learn that it takes time to better understand when things creaks or cracks in my life. Because I do want to be able to understand when I can increase the pressure or ease up on the jack when I need it.
j
2 comments:
I didn't know you could do that....straighten an old staircase. I thought you had to rip it out and start new.
Good lesson in life.
You are a wise man...
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