We have a dining room table impacted with memories. We had it made for us by an old-school craftsman when we lived in New England almost 30 years ago. It was made from soft pinewood and has had to be reinforced underneath over the years with two cracks running the whole length of the table. The soft wood gives it a grainy colonial feel and if you look across the face of the grain you can see the rows left by the hand plane of the wood maker. The soft wood also means it has absorbed every nick and blow that has been extended upon it over the years, and now, those marks have become its treasure – the most treasured of all being the marks left on it by twelve years of homework from our two oldest children, and yet to be left by Chandler.
At one time we were adamant about not having this happen. We constantly harped about making them put something under their papers so as to not mark up the table, but I can look right now around my laptop and find clear evidence that those warnings fell on deaf ears. Thank goodness they did, otherwise this tabletop wouldn’t have become the time capsule that it is today. If you look hard enough, you can find whole words or maybe a math formula imbedded in it.
If I look at it long enough and let my mind wander, I can easily be sitting here up past midnight with Christopher or Anne nodding over my shoulder, trying to stay awake while I type and edit their term paper which is undoubtedly due in the morning. Every scratch – every gouge – tells a different story. I wouldn’t lose this table for anything.
I wonder if somewhere in the mind of God there is a place where the indentions of our lives – even the liberties we have taken with His law – don’t play out fondly in His memory. Inasmuch as it is in the breaking His laws that we have come to know Him, this is true, at least for us. Not that we don’t love and respect His law, it’s just that it will never make us righteous, and yet it has led us to His grace. Somehow it is in the wood of our attempts to either follow Him or not that our transgressions are captured and meaningful simply because they are ours. He died for them all – the impressions imbedded in the grain of that wood, our treasure for eternity.
John Fischer The Catch 
I hope that everything works out on your old house, I can see by the pitcher that you and your family live in a old shack, brother you are in the same shape many of us are in. Our hope in in heaven, my old car is 15 years old and wont smog in California. When I go out to eat it is from the dollar menu at Mc Donalds. I will like to send you $10.00 to help with your home. Although I am disabled and cant leave the house often, I here your cry… We can google earth some of these preachers addresses and see what type of homes that they live in and there drive ways are full of new cars, although they wont give a dime to help the needy, they eat in fancy restaurants, order the most expensive item on the menu, pay the 150.00 dollar tab and leave a 20.00 dollar tip… Then have the gall to stand up in front of the congregation and ask to give over and above this week because we have unexpected needs. I feel for you and your family brother, good luck, God knows and he will provide all that we really need.
Another great Catch. I love reminiscing over objects. You captured this in your writing about the marks and dents being something of a time capsule for your children’s past homework. Lovely.
The metaphor of our personal dents and marks (our sins, if you will) resonates. Thanks. It reminds me of Jesus’ scars. All our wounds leave marks and those marks are reminders of our sacred wounds. By Jesus’ stripes we are healed. God works through our flaws. Just as Leonard Cohen remarks in “Anthem” – “There is a crack in everything. That ‘s how the light gets in”.