Grateful for Fixing

When my youngest son Sam was four, we were at church one Sunday. He was playing with some paper, writing his name, drawing shapes. I took one piece and folded inticately into a large triangle. After I gave it to him, he declared it was a sailboat. After a while, Sam unfolded it, and got frustrated folding it back into the sailboat shape. He looked up at me very sadly, and handed me the paper. He whispered, "Ruined it."

It was heartbreaking, how much sorrow he invested into that whisper. I was struck at how the experience parallels our own lives. How we ruin things with our failures, our mistakes, our mortality, and are left mournful at the fallen state that results. Things break, moth/rust corrupt. They fall apart, and we mourn their loss, grumble at the cost of their replacement.

Growing up, my Dad fixed *everything*. I watched sometimes, and wish that I had paid stricter attention (so I could have soaked up more of his knowledge). But I learned enough; whenever I packed to go places, I took a screwdriver so I could fix stuff that broke.

On my mission, I repaired fans, bikes, doorknobs, something in every apartment.

As an adult, as a Dad, it's an ongoing process. A few weeks ago, the garbage disposal in our sink wouldn't work. When you flipped the switch, nothing. Having repaired them in the past, I knew there was a ground fault interrupt breaker on the motor, so I flipped it back. "HMMMMMMM" is the sound it made, it was clearly stuck. I called my Dad, and he told me about the hex nut on the bottom of most disposals you can use to force them to turn, or rotate them backwards to unstick them.

Problem solved.

We've had cabinets with too much space, and not enough shelf. Easy, we put in more shelves!

Some things can't be easily put back together (so we bid fond farewells to the $.35 plastic whistle that got crushed after it was left on the floor). I try to invite kids to watch what I am doing so they can learn the skill. Learn the *lesson*.

Most everything can be fixed. It is worth it to try. Worth it to educate yourself and see if you can repair it. Sometimes, we have to ask for help from pros. Sometimes, we have to get the pros to do the fixing, true, but there is usually something we can do to make it work. To control our environment.

So when Sam thought is paper was ruined, it struck me that there is a great lesson in how we see problems, how we see ourselves. No matter how "ruined" we might feel things become, they can always, always be put back together. As I folded the paper back together for Sam, I felt hope for us all.