Last year ended with the final inspection of a new home / bakery in the nearby town of Kurashiki, Japan. It was a whirlwind to finish making every effort to build our first home/store from the ground up in less than 9 months. After the final inspection and the removal of all of the protective coverings for the various pieces that make up this beautiful new building made from wood, stone, soil, glass, and ceramic tile, it was as usual stunning to enter the quiet humble space. The smell of natural materials, the play of light on the hewn beams, the peaceful quiet of the empty space embraced by natural earthen plaster!
Taking a few days off and going back to my wife’s hometown of Kyoto to be with her family and my sweet little 9 month old son was breathtakingly refreshing and gave me time to reflect on the new year. What emerged was the question of what we can do to help a world that is increasingly divided, ripe with conflict, and struggling to find a way to move forward in a modern society that has yet to perceive that our world is on fire, literally and figuratively now.
Day to day, as a builder, what can I do?
In the last couple of years we have shifted our posture from “just trying to make it” to (with the help of some success) how can we help others learn this craft? We are all along questioning what it means to build a building that is good for the whole world and not just the clients’ that trust us so dearly to make them a high quality; beautiful building that will keep them safe.
To take this up means to cultivate peoples’ very own agency to build. We decided to start trying to find ways to make it possible for people from other countries who were interested in learning to be able to come to our shop and see what it is like to work as a carpenter here. We have had people come for as little as a few hours or a day to a young man who is due to be here for a full year on a cultural studies visa striving to learn this craft. In just a year we have had dozens of people visit, and each individual has a different idea of what he or she wants to learn and how long he or she has to learn. Each individual has different goals and skills and dreams in regards to building.
As a human there is a pride that can get in the way, a pride that says,
“What do you think you can learn in one day, or even one week, or even one year?!”
As a human there is also a fear that can get in the way,
“What if they are better than me?”
“What if they take my business?”
“What if they don’t approve of me?”
And yet we can choose to see through that voice, to put down that thought.
Each persons own agency, their own ability to do this, on any level, is so profoundly amazing, and this sense of agency alone needs to be cultivated for us to find a way to take up our compassionate humanity and create a world where we can all live and thrive. It is the same agency that we have in a vote for a politician, the same agency that we have in a choice to eat for our health, or to help our neighbor who might be in a jam, or to step aside and let someone else go first…moment to moment, an agency to make this world one that we can all thrive in.
Believing in ‘big’ things like businesses and governments and countries and any group you can name makes us lose sight of the biggest, unbounded self that we are.
Our own unbound self is not a belief; it is right in front of us AS the agency that is constantly available. So when we meet you all in this new year we want to keep respecting your sense of agency to build, to build well, for the whole world, and we look forward to honoring the urgency that is necessary to move through this time in history, moment by moment, one building at a time.
Happy New Year,
Jon
