Yesterday I finished my latest restoration project.

I often write of restoration here. Part of it is because it’s something I am familiar with. My father was a great restorer of furniture and it is one of the things I still carry of him. Much of the furniture in my house are pieces I restored. I like the results and I like the work.

The other reason is that the metaphor of restoration resonates with me. I have spent a lot of years restoring myself from the dark broken soul I was 20 years ago to where I am now. I know what it is like to be broken. I know the work that goes into coming back from brokenness. And I know how much I treasure my life now.

Both my father’s skill and my own journey have colored how I see other broken people. I am perfectly aware that some furniture and some people are too far broken to restore. But that is a far smaller number of people than our society, and sometimes ourselves, believe it to be. Mostly, I believe almost anything and anyone can be restored.

The drawers in the picture were in a Facebook Marketplace ad. They were advertised as drawers to hold blueprints or art. As soon as I saw the picture, I knew what it was: a set of drawers to hold the paraments, the colored altar cloths and other drapes in a sanctuary . It turns out I was right. It came from an old, closed Catholic church. Each drawer has a label with the color of parament, for the different liturgical seasons of the year. I knew I had to have it. It was free, the ad said, but you had come come get it. I was off in a flash.

There was a reason it was free. It was all loose and coming apart. Pieces were missing. But I felt like I could figure it out. I loaded it on and in my old Isuzu Trooper brought it to my studio.

Restoration starts with deconstruction. Whether is furniture or our soul, you have to tear into it to see what you have. What has caused the brokenness. I can recall in my own dark times, my therapist (I had the good sense to find one, and she was good), helped me break down my own life, to learn where the brokenness came from. It was unpleasant and felt like going backwards. But it was essential to the restoration.

It was the same way with the drawers. I took every bit of it apart. By the time I was done, the frame looked like a pile of kindling wood. I undid every screw, every nail. In the process I learned how it was put together.

That was a help, because some of the parts were broken and I had to buy a bit of lumber and cut out new parts. New screws and nails. Wood glue to replace the dry-rotted glue that was in place.

And then finally, over the past week, the reconstruction . That’s the fun part. You go slow, fitting each part back in place. Making sure it fits. Carefully screwing, nailing, and gluing each piece. It is slow work, and the closer you get to the end, the bigger the temptation is to go fast, take shortcuts. But you resist that temptation. Both in person and in furniture. Every step is important. You have to go through the whole process to get the results you want.

I have come to appreciate the process for itself. There is a certain zen to it. A certain sense of peace as everything is focused on the single small part you are working on.

I can remember when I started restoring my own furniture. I did not appreciate the process. It was the same whilst rebuilding my soul. I wanted the results. It took time for me to understand that the results came from the work. From the discipline. Today, in my seventies. I am in a place that appreciates the process for what it is: Essential to restoration.

This was the first piece I have done in a while. I had fun with it, I enjoyed the deliberateness of it, My life and work is often very helter skelter, so that focus was good for me. And now I have a set of wooden storage drawers, with an ecclesiastical history to replace my Big Lots plastic drawers. It’s a major improvement in the feel of the place. And it was a good reminder, one I think I need periodically, that almost anything, or anyone can be restored. A reminder our world needs now and again.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom