Fixturing
Today, I used a vacuum hold device to hold some shelves while I was working on them.
I will _never_ go back to clamps to do that again. It was just so effortless to place my work on the vacuum chuck, have it not move, and route, plane, and sand away - on the entire surface. Don't have to fandangle around the hold-down point. Don't have to worry about it coming a bit loose. Easy to use. Genius invention. Grabo is the name.
I realized that good fixturing does two things at once:
1. Holds a workpiece from moving around under external force.
2. Presents the relevant sides of a workpiece at a useful angle/location.
That's it. It's not incredibly hard.
Christ probably was hearkening back to his carpentry days when we talked of building upon rock.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27)
Hm. Good fixturing is important in the spiritual life, too. Our bodies are temples; houses of God - they must be build on rock; they must be properly fixtured. In setting up our daily rituals, we need fixtures that prevent drifting, yet still present the sides of our life to God to be worked on - room for analysis, room to let Him in. To maximize both useful presentation and anchoring.