My Father Taught Me And I Never Used It

He taught you on Saturdays, or in the evenings, or in a garage that smelled of a particular thing you can still call up without trying.

And you learned it. Properly. He was patient about some parts and not about others, and you can still hear him on the parts he was not patient about.

Then life went another way. You did something else, which was sensible, and the thing he taught you sat where it sat.

And now he is gone, and the month is short, and somebody has asked you what you could do for money, and the honest answer sits in a toolbox in the garage and you cannot go and open it.

Let me say the thing I think is actually happening, because I do not believe this is about skill at all.

You are still holding what he gave you, and a thing left in a drawer has never once been a thing given back.

If you picked it up now, for money, two things would happen at once. You would be close to him again, which is the thing you most want. And you would be close to him again, which is the thing you least want, because the last time you did that with your hands he was standing there.

That is not a practical problem and no article about earning is going to solve it with a tip. So I am going to be honest with you about it rather than clever.

Stir up the gift that is in thee

Paul writes to a younger man about something that came to him through another person's hands, and the instruction is unusual.

Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. (2 Timothy 1:6, King James Version)

Stir up the gift, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

Two things there. The gift is in him already, and it came through somebody else's hands, and the older man who gave it is the one telling him to use it.

You are holding something that arrived through a particular pair of hands and stayed, and a gift given by somebody who is gone has never once gone with him. 2 Timothy 1:6 says which is in thee by the putting on of my hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes the thing stay in the person rather than in the giver.

And the verb. Stir up. It means to fan a fire that has gone low, which tells you the assumption behind the sentence.

The assumption is that a thing can go quiet in a person without going out, and that the right response is to work at it rather than to mourn it.

You have something that has gone low rather than something that has gone out, and years of not touching a thing have never once been the same as losing it. The Holy Spirit is the one who fans what has gone quiet, and it is written in 2 Timothy 1:6 as an instruction rather than as a hope.

The grief is in the hands, not the head

Now let me say the part about him, because skipping it would make this article useless.

Grief does not live where people think it lives. It is not mainly in photographs or in anniversaries. It lives in the body, in the specific movements a person made alongside somebody.

So a hand reaching for a tool the way he taught you to reach for it is going to bring him up, hard, in the middle of a Tuesday. That is not a failure of composure. That is what a body does.

You have a grief that lives in the hands and not in the photographs, and meeting him in a movement has never once been a sign that a man picked it up too soon. The written word has an older man telling a younger one to use what was handed to him, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when that costs something.

And here is the thing I would most like you to consider, and I offer it rather than pressing it.

Using it is not a betrayal of him and it is not a museum either. There is a third thing, and it is the one the verse describes: a gift that came through a pair of hands and is now in yours, being used, in a life he does not get to see.

You have the only kind of inheritance that has to be spent to exist, and a skill kept out of respect has never once been the same as a skill honored. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a gift alive in a person, and 2 Timothy 1:6 puts the responsibility for stirring it on the one who received it.

One small thing, and not in his workshop

So the assignment, and I want to make it smaller than it would usually be on this page, because of what it costs.

Say out loud the one thing you are genuinely good at, and name one person who needs it. 2 Timothy 1:6 has a man told to stir up what is in him, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is there while a son says what his father taught him.

Say it in his words if you have to. He would have said it a particular way. Use that.

You are able to say out loud a sentence he taught you to say, and borrowing a dead man's phrasing has never once been the same as hiding behind it. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a person the first sentence, and the written word names whose hands the thing came through without embarrassment.

And a practical note, and it is the one piece of real advice in this article. Do the first job somewhere that is not his bench.

Not because his bench is wrong. Because the first time should be about the work, and at his bench it will be about him, and you can go back there later when the work is steady.

You are allowed to start somewhere easier, and choosing the gentler room first has never once been a failure of nerve. The Holy Spirit is the one who is not in a hurry with a grieving man, and it is written that the gift is stirred up rather than switched on.