The noun, rumination, means a deep considered thought about something. 

Our outside patio furniture is about 12 years ago. The set is made out of cast iron and has two end chairs that are “rockers.” One of the rockers broke, allowing someone who would sit in it to rock entirely backwards and possibly fall. This could hurt someone so we decided to replace it. 

My wife keeps excellent purchase records for us and found that we could order the exact chair that was damaged from American Sales, which we did. It arrived last Saturday. 

The chair required some minor assembly that we did together which was very helpful as it was somewhat clumsy in size and needed two people to complete the task: one to hold the different parts while the other person screwed the nuts and bolts together. 

What was most important was to use locking washers to keep the nuts and bolts fastened tightly together and to prevent these “fasteners” from becoming loose and possibly causing the chair to collapse. These fasteners attached the seat to the base of the chair.

Much to our frustration, one of the two locking washers that help lock the fasteners in place fell to the ground and we could not find it. I suggested we would be ok with just using the one locking washer, but my wife cautioned that we would not want a loved one or friend to fall if the chair collapsed someday due to the lack of that washer.

I scoured my jars of nuts and bolts in our garage and could not find the size of washer that was needed and really did not want to make a special trip to a hardware store to buy one silly locking washer.

My wife more wisely looked at the broken chair and suggested we reuse a locking washer from that chair, which we did and then our project was completed.

As I thought about it, the washer was in use in the past, is now in use once again and might be used in the future should this scenario ever repeat itself.

With our faith, what we learned from Jesus in the past through His teachings, is still true today and will be tomorrow. We have a richness in our faith that never changes and gives us a wonderful strength. That strength keeps us from falling into sinful habits and keeps us safe.

Interesting to me is the fact that both Jesus and St. Joseph were carpenters, and we still learn from their skilled craft the deeper meaning of what is important in life today.

By Deacon Tom Gryzbek