Sometimes I over estimate how hard a job is going to be and thus hold off for a good while waiting to get started. Other times, I grossly under estimate a job and then find myself disappointed when the progress doesn't appear as quickly as I would like.

But when I do as I ought to, I don't think about how long something will take, but instead focus on producing the best possible outcome. In building the porch on the back of the house, I have found that the work you can see is what goes pretty quickly. It's the work in getting ready for doing what can be seen that takes all the time. I am nearing the end of the job after spending about three days working on it. Remaining are the deck rails, a portion of the roof rafters and the roofing and one set of stairs. Well, unless I decide to do something else in the meantime.

In my case, I don't build things as often as I once did, so there are little tricks, nuances, that I have to remember. In addition, I have found out about several new building methods that make work easier. I try to be willing to learn, adapt new ideas and be fluid to change, providing that it is better. Most changes don't turn out that way.

Well, unless you count trying to dance and sing "Jesus Loves Me" after smashing a finger with the hammer while children watch and giggle nearby. Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it. It beats the mule driver's song I used to sing by a long shot.

I have also started working more with metal hangers and brackets, lag bolts, post anchors and other conveniences that didn't exist ‘way back when' my father first taught me how to put a few boards together.

Even so, no matter how much things progress, they still remain basically the same. Sure, I've changed over from nails to screws and from sawmill lumber to treated wood, but I'm still using the same layouts and patterns that he taught me years ago.

Those same basic skills have remained with me all these years and I doubt they will ever become obsolete. One day I will pass them along to someone else, like my own children.

Sometimes when I'm working, I think about him and even picture him teaching me how to do things. I can recall some of the sayings he had, "Measure twice and cut once: you can always make a board shorter, but it's awful hard to make one longer. I also remember him telling me, "Start square and end square."

He bought me a rock maple miter box at the hardware store when I started building things and I used it for many years. It still sits in my building, a beloved relic of a past time. These days, I cut most of my miters with a chop saw, which makes setting the angles much faster and easier, but I still use the lessons I learned painstakingly sawing—or re-sawing several times—pieces of molding for an inside or outside corner as he watched and pointed out my mistakes.

As a young man, getting everything built properly was even more trying for me than it is today. My father always made sure I had the right tools and materials, and that everything was planned properly, cut straight and in the right place before I started pounding nails.

With youth I had enthusiasm without knowledge, with age I've found I have more knowledge than enthusiasm. You know, I didn't always listen to his advice, but I always wished that I had later (even though I didn't always tell him that).

Even now I find myself wanting to swing the hammer before I think enough, to speed up the process so I can see the results before the groundwork is done.

But I have learned the quiet pleasure of knowing where the job is going how it is going to get there before some unforeseen monstrosity shows up behind the house. There is nothing like the pleasure of patience rewarded, of faith proven true.

So often we find ourselves in the ‘drive-through' mode in life, expecting to pull up to the window and have someone shove a bag of food in our window. We've been called a ‘microwave generation,' but nothing that ever popped out of a microwave in two minutes could hold a candle to the cakes baked in my grandmother's old wood cook stove with hours of effort. It isn't that she could out-cook Betty Crocker, although she could, it is the fact that I knew how much love, sweat and patience were spent in a simmering hot kitchen to get the job done for the sake of others. In a word, it was her sacrifice for us.

She never complained while working in that over-heated room, but I remember how she smiled as we enjoyed the fruits of her labors. In case you aren't aware, wood fires in the summer tend to get a kitchen hot enough to melt the paint off the walls. Who would do that job with a smile these days?

We look for the fastest way to get to where we are going, even if it only means waiting longer when we get there. Life is a race and everyone wants to be first.

But that doesn't go with the lessons I've learned in faith. I don't let the way things look right now affect the way I believe they are going to end up. More often than not, the right now is just a single point on a path with many unseen twists and turns and a future destination that is always just a little further down the way. Then one day we're at the end and there's nothing left to do but hurry up and die. Life was meant to be savored, not wolfed down like a meal in a cardboard box.

While the microwave and the zeal of youth can get things done faster, the slower, more difficult route is always best. I am just beginning to learn the full scope of patience in all things. I've seen the satisfaction in watching the fruit grow slowly on the tree and then picking it at its peak.

Well, I better go — my leftovers are ready in the microwave.

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