Friday, February 19, 2016

On Carpentry and Prayer


Debbie, my wife, and I have been watching “This Old House” and “Ask This Old House” each Thursday night for three years and have recently found the confidence to undertake some small projects.  We put crown molding over the sliding glass door and around our bathroom mirrors.  We bought a fireplace mantle from MantlesDirect.com and mounted it.   We removed several ceiling-mounted kitchen cabinets and even worked with drywall to patch the holes. In most of these projects, power tools were used.  The scope of our expertise is expanding.

Truth be told, in reality I am recovering from decades of regression.  My father was a talented carpenter and cabinetmaker, and my younger brother works as a carpenter and builds cabinets and furniture.  I never had the talent of either of them, but I could be productive on the jobsite.  I could sink a nail into subflooring with three or four hammer swings.  I could nail down shoe molding along a floor with two hard and one soft swing of the hammer.  I have lost that ability; my present hammering is of unpredictable aim and unreliable force.  I have lost the muscle memory I once had.  Muscle memory comes through repeatedly doing a specific motor task until a “memory” is developed in your muscles, eventually allowing it to be performed without conscious effort.
I believe our minds and hearts can be trained in the same way.  The “Jesus Prayer” is one way that believers can create a type of “muscle memory” of faith and obedience in their minds and hearts.  The prayer is quite simple: Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  This prayer dates from the 5th century.  It has always been more popular in the Eastern Orthodox Church than in the Western branch of Christianity.  In thinking about sin, Eastern Christianity has preserved a greater emphasis on the dynamic of sickness/ weakness and healing.  We in the West are more prone to give a central place to the dynamic of guilt and forgiveness when contemplating our sinfulness.  Repentance in Eastern Christianity is fueled more by a belief that we can change and less by the need to have our sense of guilt disarmed.
I see the “Jesus Prayer” less as a reminder that we should be continually wallowing in our guilt and more as a reminder that we can change.  The prayer begins by invoking the name of Christ, who is the ground of all hope in our lives. We ask for mercy, the only durable way forward for us.  Then we acknowledge the truth about ourselves:  we are sinners.  This confession does not discourage us because we have already initiated our way forward through the prayer bathed in the healing mercy we find in Jesus.  The prayer is a candid but hopeful confession.  Repeated recitation of the prayer conditions our hearts and minds to live our lives under the mercy of God, fueled by an honest admission that we do not have to remain the way we are; we can change.  I am working to create a “muscle memory” in my heart and mind that frames each day with the mercy of God and creates a hopeful urgency that lets God change me. 
I am also continuing to condition my eye and hand to achieving a greater level of carpentry skill.  Next will we replace the fronts on the bathroom cabinets or the broken faucet.  Neither will necessitate the use of power tools, unfortunately.
Blessings,
Jim Kelsey