This new website has been a bit of work by itself. I don’t know about you, but the kind of labor I often most enjoy, even given my limited ability, is physical work. There is a gift that comes from it that abides, unlike much of the work from our every-day, transient, digital society. When crafting material goods, solutions to household problems, or simply harvesting for your land,the fruit of your labor often remains with you, to be shared and enjoyed over time.
Writing about the virtue of work goes back to at least the 3rd Century B.C. In the Bible’s Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, 13: “Moreover that all can eat and drink and enjoy the good of all their toil–this is the gift of God.” Centuries before Christ, the writer was acknowledging the honor taken a job well done, or, as often in my case, a job done well-enough. It an unheralded blessing from above.
These days in America, there are also other blessings to doing it yourself. Multiple times I’ve hired a tradesman at high wage, not realizing until he arrived, that it was a simple job I could have undertook myself for a little more research, sweat equity, and time. Multiple times too, I have been swindled on home project jobs by contractors who abandoned a job they had done badly, costing thousands of dollars.
One thing about doing it yourself, you’re probably not going to be a victim of any self-scamming, unless you’re in need of a therapist. The worst thing that happens on a home project–assuming you’re pursuing a project that does not involve personal risk or danger–is that you do a job poorly, and have to do it again.
In the process, you’ve learned something, something you may even be able to share with others.
Like a lot of men, my role model was my father. He built and rebuilt about three homes in his time as my Dad. That feat, and others, granted him a lot of honorary titles in our family–“Renaissance man,” “Jack of all trades, Master of none,” “Woodworker.” I never really picked up on much of what he was teaching me when I was a boy.
In putting on a new roof, I fell off the house. In instructing me on putting together the angles of a picture frame, I was perplexed, even after several explanations. In seeing how my father hooked up the hitch and raised or lowered our camping trailer, I was still scratching my head.
In a quiet moment, Dad once admitted that he did it because he had too. He had seven kids, and they couldn’t afford to hire help very often. But you could also the other reason–the recognition that in God’s creative grace, he was making the world a better place to live in for those he loved the most.
It has been later in life drawing from time with my father that I have been able to see new value in self-reliance. I’ve done some small projects, with varying success. The simpler ones so far, are the best ones for me. The most involved project I’ve completed was assembling a somewhat intricate gas grill, that arrived in pieces from Amazon.
The hardest and most fruitful project was breaking the ground on some of our lawn for planting, and then inexpensively building the framework for a small grape arbor. Where a clergy friend once scoffed at the chewed up lawn, that I’d never make anything from the effort, the last few season we feasted on Concord grapes from a single vine a neighbor gifted us. We even shared our bounty with neighbors.
There’s a lot to be said for working physically at home. There’s virtue in it. You might not become a saint or Michelangelo, but you can generally trust the guy doing the work. In this era of America, I’ve found that harder to come by. And I don’t get eyestrain with that kind of work, or the over-sophisticated, build-a-better-mousetrap digital landscape that requires me to learn a new skill to do the same thing I just did yesterday in a different way.
I hope you enjoy Every Day Self Reliance. Let me know what you think.
–Matt
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