HOLDING THE NAIL

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… ©

In Sarah Vowell’s delightful, LAFAYETTE IN THE SOMEWHAT UNITED STATES [and nobody writes history like Sarah Vowell!], Thomas Jefferson remarks on the cooperation the USA was able to get from France during and after the war of independence, because of Lafayette, “In truth, I only held the nail. He drove it in.”

It reminds me of our friends, David and Marcia. They needed to repair their deck, but he was blind and she had a bad case of the Parkinson’s shakes. You don’t want to hold the nail if a blind man’s got the hammer, but you don’t want to hold the nail if a woman with the shakes has the hammer, either.

That, I think, is probably why Jefferson was the greatest of “the founding fathers.” He was willing to hold the nail.

David and Marcia took turns, and the deck got repaired.

Politicians these days, and presidential candidates in particular, all want to wield the hammer. But nothing gets built if no one is willing to take a turn holding the nail.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.