Some people make a mark on you! Pete Peters was a friend some years ago. I first met him when he was 90, and very active. Pete made small monuments, literally. His first big project, as far as I knew, was for the city of Houston.
Streets need pavement and streets need street signs at intersections. Seems obvious. But how to put them there. Houston set up a system of making square markers, concrete, about four feet high, with street names and usually block numbers. Super system, durable, all those good things. The process was a bit slow to create a mold with letters inside, pour the concrete, then rebuild the mold for the next one.
Pete created a simple new process for a reusable mold, using hinges and hinge pins and removable letters. Simple changes that made the slow process much quicker, and a new contract was awarded. Corner markers are not HUGE items, but when you get the city of Houston, even years ago, that's a real deal.
As my wise elder once said: "Combine little streams to make a river, you know." The next step was the first Houston to Atlantic Coast pipeline, one little marker every mile along the way, made and installed.
He was one man who spent a lifetime making things; jewelry, ornaments, and markers. And along the way, creating amazing relationships through his church and friendship circles.
It would be a better world if LOTS more folks just did what Pete did.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Today is Dian Fossey's birthday. Wonderful scientist who worked with gorillas in the mountain forests of Rawanda. Her death there in tribal chaos serves as a two-sided monument. Wikipedia on Dian Fossey
It reminds us of the wonders of God's creation, the mysterious relationships between animals and humans, and the amazing detail that is found when we look long enough. And it reminds us of the astounding capacity of human nature to fight and destroy. Rawanda, Burundi, Uganda and other nations have histories of self-destruction that are wilder than fiction, and tend to repeat.
A naive older friend once said to me: "Oh, nobody ever went to war over food!" But when the prosperous grind down the poor, the end result eventually is revolution and chaos.
In Genesis, the very opening, the Spirit of God is brooding over the chaos of the un-shaped natural world. God's FIRST act is to transform chaos into a livable Graden of Eden. There's a pattern, a test-case, a monument, that says very simply what God DOES is what God WILLS. Life-giving change is His expectation.
It reminds us of the wonders of God's creation, the mysterious relationships between animals and humans, and the amazing detail that is found when we look long enough. And it reminds us of the astounding capacity of human nature to fight and destroy. Rawanda, Burundi, Uganda and other nations have histories of self-destruction that are wilder than fiction, and tend to repeat.
A naive older friend once said to me: "Oh, nobody ever went to war over food!" But when the prosperous grind down the poor, the end result eventually is revolution and chaos.
In Genesis, the very opening, the Spirit of God is brooding over the chaos of the un-shaped natural world. God's FIRST act is to transform chaos into a livable Graden of Eden. There's a pattern, a test-case, a monument, that says very simply what God DOES is what God WILLS. Life-giving change is His expectation.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Monuments are absolutely a product of human nature. Big pyramids in Egypt or lapel buttons awarded by civic clubs, we make monuments. Some of the biggest ones "fray" a bit, as the pyramids that have lost their polished outer layer, continuing through history as huge rough slabs, overwhelmingly big. But whatever their size, once they enter our minds, they sit like jurors in a jury-box, judging everything our minds produce or imagine.
In this blog, I intend to share with you (read, remember, respond, publish) the monuments that you and I use to find our way in the sometimes mapless daily adventures. Feel free to toss one in!
Even the monuments we leave in the closet still sit in the jury-box.
First example: in my study closet is a parchment-like diploma from the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston, 1896. Signed by the officials, with small taped pages attached showing the steps of being licensed and approved for the practice of medicine in Texas.
Striking acheivements for a young man from Moscow, Texas. Educated at the Masonic Academy in Moscow, then Galveston, with internship at Southern Pacific Hospital in Houston, surgical residency at Oschner Hospital in New Orleans, he was a product of the Deep East Texas Big Thicket and the modern (of the time) medical science.
The parchment is rolled and carefully stored, but the monument is in my mind as a challenge: have I yet accomplished what my grandfather accomplished? His race started at a different line than mine, but the mini-monument in my mind has a question etched: "Keeping up?"
I've got others to share. So do you.
Let's see where the conversation goes.
In this blog, I intend to share with you (read, remember, respond, publish) the monuments that you and I use to find our way in the sometimes mapless daily adventures. Feel free to toss one in!
Even the monuments we leave in the closet still sit in the jury-box.
First example: in my study closet is a parchment-like diploma from the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston, 1896. Signed by the officials, with small taped pages attached showing the steps of being licensed and approved for the practice of medicine in Texas.
Striking acheivements for a young man from Moscow, Texas. Educated at the Masonic Academy in Moscow, then Galveston, with internship at Southern Pacific Hospital in Houston, surgical residency at Oschner Hospital in New Orleans, he was a product of the Deep East Texas Big Thicket and the modern (of the time) medical science.
The parchment is rolled and carefully stored, but the monument is in my mind as a challenge: have I yet accomplished what my grandfather accomplished? His race started at a different line than mine, but the mini-monument in my mind has a question etched: "Keeping up?"
I've got others to share. So do you.
Let's see where the conversation goes.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)