Things Unseen

The unfinished base. (Photos courtesy of the Curmudgeon.)

Copyright © Edward Riojas

Artists are rightly squeamish about showing a piece before it’s finished. Like writers, artists often wrestle with their work, and it isn’t always pretty.

I imagine the same is true of many occupations. We appreciate a good sermon, for example, but are often oblivious to the struggles of Greek and Hebrew classes that go into it. Most of use aren’t really into jots and tittles. So, too, are we glad when a plumber pays us a visit to correct some life-threatening problem. Few of us bother to consider the trade school involved just to deal with other people’s “stuff.”

On a far different plane, we are also ignorant of the massive Spiritual happenings behind our physical world – the heavenly battle against Satan and his hordes; the divine wrangling to work out things for our good. In spite of our curiosity, I doubt many of us have a real desire or the fortitude to witness that sort of thing this side of heaven.

I’m currently working on retro-fitting a wooden base for a processional crucifix. The processional was not behaving nicely, and I was tasked with adding stability. To accomplish this, I made a slightly larger base plate of the same material to give the existing base a larger footprint. I also added ten pounds of bar steel. The steel, however, will remain hidden. As in many things, what is not seen is of greater consequence and carries more weight than what will be immediately obvious.

Concealed steel weights in the wooden base.