My driveway is a problem.
It is long and wide, like the deck of an aircraft carrier. I love that about it. So do my kids. They’ve almost got a whole street to themselves without ever leaving the safety of home. It has served as a hockey rink, a racetrack, a sidewalk chalk exhibit space, a water park, and a daredevil bicycle course where the boys see how many school buses they can leap over while their heads are on fire.
Now how is that a problem? you might be saying. Well, it’s related to the same problem that afflicts any empty counter space in your house. There’s some strange law in the universe that attracts things to a vacant surface. Before you know it your clean kitchen counter is cluttered with cereal boxes, used cake mixing bowls, junk mail, baskets of unfolded laundry, the remote for the downstairs tv you can never find, and an appliance that only make Egyptian waffles and lattes simultaneously.
In the case of my driveway, it’s lots and lots of cars.
There are two licensed drivers in my home, yet there are five cars in my driveway (ten if you count the battery and pedal-operated ones). What makes this worse is that the running cars are currently outnumbered by the non-runners. If not careful it could soon be confused with either a used car lot or an aspiring junkyard.
While this automotive collection is probably not the best thing from the perspective of the real estate agent trying to sell the house two doors down, it would prove to be perfect for an event our church’s home school academy was putting on. I’d been asked to put on an automotive mechanics clinic for a dozen or so boys, and my asphalt aircraft carrier deck is perfect for that. One problem though.
I am not a professional mechanic.
At best I’m a tinkerer, the definitions for which all convey the idea of somebody who doesn’t exactly know what they’re doing when they set out to repair things. This is the reason the driveway non-runners outnumber the runners. Thus I enlisted the help of a neighbor and a friend, both of whom actually know what they’re doing with a wrench in their hands.
Checking fluid levels, tire pressures, brake pad thickness, tread depth, engine codes, and battery voltage were all demonstrated. There might even have been a few things in there about drag racing engines, heel-toe pedal technique, and Mexican hoppy car suspension setups.
With them handling the how-to stuff, I was free to follow in the footsteps of my favorite tinkerer and deliver a homily to the kids. In a nutshell I told them we’re all mechanics (including me). Tools and their uses are inescapable necessities, and even if that tool is as small as a number two pencil, in it is the power to create and destroy worlds.
The night went well. Nobody lost a finger. And though none of my cars were any more fixed than when we started, we had by night’s end drilled about twenty holes in a tire that now bore more plugs than a winery. That kind of fun is a sure win.
We Are All Mechanics
How do I get to assert that everyone, no matter what color their collar or professional calling, is a mechanic?
It comes down to a basic understanding of tools. I have never met anyone that does not use tools. Whether its a ten millimeter socket, an iPhone app that translates Latin into eighth grade English, or a shish kabob stick used for scratching your back, tools are everywhere. They’re a part of everything we do. It’s part of being human.
One of the dads at my house that night said that he’s smart enough to know that whenever something is wrong with his car the nice folks at the dealership will take care of it for him. He’s not a mechanic, but he’s the guy I’d call when it comes to coffee. He’s got the tools for that, being a professional roaster.
He’s right in that nobody knows everything, and when you can afford it, it’s usually a good idea to have someone that actually knows what they’re doing doing your work for you. King Solomon said, “Better to be lowly and have a servant than to play the great man and lack bread.”1 No use in pretending to be something you’re not and at the end of the day having a driveway full of broken cars.
The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, translates this verse “Better to be lowly and a servant to himself…”, which has the connotation that if you’re going to be poor, you’re at least better off if you know how to do your own work (“a servant to himself”). That sounds more like its talking to a guy in my station. If you don’t know what to do, and can’t afford anyone’s services, you’re going to be better off spending a few minutes on YouTube and giving it your best until the day that you can afford to hire the pros.
But regardless, whatever work is getting done is getting done by the use of tools. That night with the boys I tried to communicate to them that tools are servants in their own right. My wife has at her command each day servants that rouse her, wash her dishes, dry her children’s clothes, brew her coffee, and bake her Egyptian waffles. Tools extend her reach and expand her fruitfulness as a mother and homemaker. It’s simply amazing what we can do with the right tools at our disposal.
In Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work and Wealth, Douglas Wilson says:
“Adam could not exercise dominion over a hedge without tools, and God told him to exercise dominion over the whole globe and all the animals in it. To exercise dominion over the fish of the sea, I am pretty sure a boat would have been needed … So man is not man without tools. The notion that we can be truly human as disembodied and ephemeral spirits is not a Christian idea … When God breathed the breath of life into Adam, and Adam first sat up, he did so with two opposable thumbs … The world is laden with many good things, and apart from picking an apple or two with your bare hands, any kind of dominion has to be accomplished by means of tools. A man with tools is not being an artificial man. My argument is that a man cannot be an authentic man without tools.”2
Taking Care of Your Tools
The basis of that evening’s homily originated with Proverbs 12:10: “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” Many read this verse as if Solomon were a member of P.E.T.A., but it’s good to keep in mind what beasts were for back in his day. Basically everything we use machines for today.
The four legged beasts have been replaced largely by the four-wheeled beasts of our day, but his principle still stands. Regular maintenance is a lot easier than replacing a head gasket, and a lot cheaper.
Take care of your tools and they’ll take care of you.
Don’t be that guy that drives around with every dash light blinking at him, who goes on to complain about how cars just aren’t made like they used to be. This applies to all your tools. Update your phone. Change your HVAC filters. Brush your teeth.
The Tools for Loving Your Neighbor
Having several non-running cars in one’s driveway probably isn’t the best way to love your neighbors, especially when they’re trying to sell their house in the current economy. Sorry. I’m working on it…
Solomon goes on to say, “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”3 I'll admit that I spend a lot of time watching other people work on their cars on YouTube. It's not for learning how to do my own car projects, but a distraction from them. It's a perverse relation to work, like pornography is to sex. It lacks sense.
Doug Wilson goes on to say in Ploductivity:
“In order to connect with my project, whatever it is, I need media—that which enables us to ‘handle’ a world that is distinct from our bodies.4 ... So a right recognition of the inescapability of media helps us to understand that when a man buys a tool belt, and fills it up, he is doing something that in principle pleases God. This is what he was created to do.5 ... This means that, because of the way we are created, we cannot love others without media because love, like sound, doesn’t travel in a vacuum.6
The concept of plenty implies having more than one needs, thus the ability to share. Hard work combined with skill produces an exponential return by God’s design, for implicit in our work is our ability to meet not only our own needs, but the needs of our neighbors. And the better the tools the better the return, where, like my wife, one’s range of fruitfulness expands in all directions.
There is a reason that love used to be translated as charity in the earliest English translations of the Bible. In a day where people make asinine statements like “love is love,” it is helpful to be reminded that the basis of love is a giving of oneself to the service of others. And like Wilson argues, such love requires we take up our tools to the purpose of loving our neighbor.
That blessed tinker, John Bunyan writes of one Great-Heart who well embodies Solomon’s wisdom regarding these things. In the run up to one of my favorite sections of the second part of the Pilgrim’s Progress we hear the story of how he set out to do good to whoever might need his services:
Well, said Gaius, now you are here, and since, as I know, Mr. Great-Heart is good at his weapons, if you please, after we have refreshed ourselves, we will walk into the fields, to see if we can do any good. About a mile from hence there is one Slay-good, a giant, that doth much annoy the King’s highway in these parts; and I know whereabout his haunt is. He is master of a number of thieves: ‘t would be well if we could clear these parts of him. So they consented and went: Mr. Great-Heart with his sword, helmet, and shield; and the rest with spears and staves.
When they came to the place where he was, they found him with one Feeble-mind in his hand, whom his servants had brought unto him, having taken him in the way. Now the giant was rifling him, with a purpose after that to pick his bones; for he was of the nature of flesheaters.
Well, so soon as he saw Mr. Great-Heart and his friends at the mouth of his cave, with their weapons, he demanded what they wanted.
Mr. Great-Heart: We want thee; for we are come to revenge the quarrels of the many that thou hast slain of the pilgrims, when thou hast dragged them out of the King’s highway: wherefore come out of thy cave. So he armed himself and came out, and to battle they went, and fought for above an hour, and then stood still to take wind.
Slay-Good: Then said the giant, Why are you here on my ground?
Mr. Great-Heart: To revenge the blood of pilgrims, as I told thee before. So they went to it again, and the giant made Mr. Great-Heart give back; but he came up again, and in the greatness of his mind he let fly with such stoutness at the giant’s head and sides, that he made him let his weapon fall out of his hand. So he smote him, and slew him, and cut off his head, and brought it away to the inn. He also took Feeble-mind the pilgrim, and brought him with him to his lodgings. When they were come home, they showed his head to the family, and set it up, as they had done others before, for a terror to those that should attempt to do as he hereafter.
The moral of this story and homily: Get good at your tools that you might do good in your world. We are all mechanics.
Proverbs 12:9
Pages 27-30.
Proverbs 12:11
Page 33.
Page 38.
Page 44.
Good word, amigo.
Aside from Legos or putting a skateboard together, I never considered myself a mechanic... but by your understanding of work and tools I'll take it!!
Love the voice you're developing with Everyday Escapades.
A thoughtful and encouraging post. I'd not considered tools from this perspective before. Thanks for the needed exhortation!