Last week I made a blog post about our Christmas in July sale. This is not the kind of thing that usually results in a lot of comments, but I did receive one in particular that caught my attention. It was a beautifully-written, almost poetic, piece about the importance of what we do as woodworkers. I thought the commentary deserved more attention than simply living inside a silly blog post about a sale. So I contacted the author, Benjamin Roesler, and asked for permission to re-post it on the site for everyone to read. I think you are going to enjoy this.
I once read in a textbook on wood that “Mankind owes no greater debt than he does to wood.” If for nothing else, then for fire. Yet, we refer to a stone age, a bronze age, even a steam age, yet not a wood age? Were it not for the spear, later the bow and arow, would we still be using a stick to probe termite colonies, as our chimpanzee friends?
Were it not for wood’s uncanny ability to become, with a little help, paper, what good then Gutenberg? Without whom, there is certainly no internet. Indeed, the very air we breathe is given to us by the trees, and the water that moves through everything that lives, will pass through a tree, up through the root and out through the leaves’ stomata.
As you plane and saw, sand and scrape, remember this my fellow whisperers. Those boards in your hands, likely lived longer than you have, or ever will. As they lay drying, the moisture content you seek to eradicate may have once flown through the Euphrates. Those piles of dust, which you will sweep up and toss, will join the scraps of your turkey sandwich in the landfill, becoming soil in which a new tree will root. It may well give place for your great grandson’s hammock, later to fall on his roof in a hurricane.
We may never, in all our doweling and dovetailing, give rise to anything nearly as beautiful as the precise engineering of the mighty xylem and phloem. Our silly paper towel holders and cutting boards, entertainment centers and porch swings may seem but paltry daydreams compared to the mighty Sequoia that lived several hundred years before the Magna Carta. Yet know this, as you keep your chisels honed, and pare away the slight layers of history, as you arrange those growth rings into a more stable pattern for your table top, square your shoulders and flush your cheeks, plunge your tenons into gluey mortises and clamp your jaws tight: it is as worthwhile as anything else that can be done. For kings need thrones, ships need rudders, and martyrs need a cross to bear.
30 Responses to “Benjamin Roesler’s Thoughts on Woodworking”
What a great commentry on wood. I love it.
Wow!!! That’s fantastic Benjamin!!! I’m in front of my computer giving you a standing ovation! Very well written.
You really captured the great importance we should all have in the forefront of our thoughts as we dig into an old and well lived tree.
If you have no objection, I think this would be a nice piece on my shop wall. I’ll see if I can talk my Mom into copying it as a caligraphy piece. If not, there is always the computer.
Thanks again and thank you Marc for reposting.
“kings need thrones, ships need rudders, and martyrs need a cross to bear.” love it.
Great piece on wood. Now can you carve them into wood?
I was thinking the same thing Vic. We all need to print this and hang it in our shops. Wonderful article.
Too bad that our society doesn’t think of wood that way. My understanding is that in Japan, wood is revered. As it should be. Thanks for making us think a little.
We do not refer to a wood age, because the other ages are the tools used for working wood. Wood is universal, and unending in necessity. All of human time on earth after making tools and shelter from wood has been the wood age. Even today with our steel skyscrapers and concrete jungles we want and need wood.
Amazing,
I will now look at the wood I am using in a completely different way.. Thank you for making my woodworking journey even more enjoyable..
This will def. be hanging in my shop!!!
Guy
Also you should title this my thought is something simple
“Wood”
Guy
“The Philosophy of Lumber” by Benjamin Roesler. Availible at your local bookstore. (Its not really, but wouldn’t that be an awesome read?)
Brilliant!! Except where he said my breadboards are silly. But yeah, otherwise, I was totally moved… seriously…
This was a terrific piece and provides inspiration for the craft.
However, because I admittedly suffer from a personality quirk, I have a need to point out that Gutenberg printed his famous bibles on vellum and paper made from cotton.
That was really amazing, I agree that a printed copy on the shop wall is in order.
Very nice! This reminds me of a few things I read by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist Vietnamese refugee, easily one of my favorite philosophers.
He speaks about the concept of “interdependence”, that we are all related in an incredibly intricate and infinitely complex tapestry of history. When the average person looks at a table he sees the object, or maybe even the function. What he doesn’t see is the genetic lineage of the human who smelted the iron to make the nails, or the iron deposit that journeyed for eons underneath the earth and came to be as a result of just the right tectonic movements and pressures. He doesn’t see the genealogy of the trees, the origin of the elements being at the heart of a star, or realize that if one single constituent in this massive conglomeration were to be removed, one tiny detail, one person, one tool, one nail, the piece you see would never have existed. Like you and I are more than individual people, it’s so much more than a single table.
Well written
Peaceful!
That HAS to go on my shop wall.
Mr. Roesler, you have quite a way with words.
Thank you.
And thank you Marc for posting it.
This sure makes me respect the material we work with a little more.
Righteous! Thanks Benjamin and thanks Marc for reposting…I am slow so I missed it!
That was beautiful!
Really enjoyed it.
It makes me want to go in the shop, make fine shavings with a hand plane and contemplate life.
i say he needs to enter that into the Popular Woodworking magazines End Grain Contest. Pop woodworking is holding a contest for entries for the End Grain area of the magazine. they are looking for essays such as that. I am trying to get around to entering it as well. I think the winner gets his/her essay in print. deadline is July 31st 2010.
Mr. Roesler should submit this to the current Popular Woodworking Magazine “End Grain” Contest that they are currently having (website: http://blogs.popularwoodworkin.....odworking) )
This is a fantastic piece definitely worth publishing in my opinion!
I almost started to cry, but did not want to use a tissue to wipe them away, it would have been a moral sin at that point to waste a piece of paper that might have come from a tree that once drank the tears of a mother who’s child died in a long forgotten war…..
LOL @ Joey… unless he’s serious… in which case I REALLY LOL @ Joey… B-)
What a wonderful commentary on wood, its history and uses. It reminds us that every piece of wood deserves our very best efforts.
Add me to the list and I hope it grows. We are cutting down rain forests in other countries much like we did in Minnesota. We really never learn. If it weren’t for the trees there would be no man? Symbiotic relationships are slowly being discovered. This is the most obvious. When a tree is cut down our world hurts a lot more. Just saw Avatar. The roots of life are intertwined with the trees. Trees are harvested, ground into chards and soaked with formaldahyd, now less? To make a panel for construction. George Nakashima was in tune with his interconnection. So was James Krenow. Hopefully we will cherish the materials we so badly butcher as new guys. LOL
Don’t know what you do for a living, but you should be a writer. Great work.
I agree. I love wood, the smells, the feel, the look when it is all done and finished. We do need to be better stewards of what we have left and continue to plant a nurture more wherever and whenever possible. I am trying it right here at home. Whenever I see a tree being cut down I inquire as to what is happening to the wood. I am going to try to collect some useful sized trunks and branches and have them sawed into usable wood. Yes the variety is small but the cost is perfect.
Wow, that is really well-spoken. I totally dig!
Just saw an interview and slide presentation on Hank Gilpin. His interest in woodworking , trained by Tage Fried, has led him to appreciate, learn about America’s woodlands. All tree species are blessings to this master. Check him out.