It is the end of the year, 2007, and it is a good time to look up and scan the horizon. What comes next? What can a common woodworker see when he lifts his eyes from the workbench?

Yesterday I went to the movies with my wife, to a huge new mega-plex with 12 wide screens of distraction. It is what millions of people do to escape their lives, overcome a sense of boredom and find pleasure in visual imagery, loud noise and fantasy. It seems to be good for the measured economy and lots of people in cities far from Arkansas are making lots of money from it. So much money in fact, that going to the movies is something that most Americans do on special occasions. For the everyday distraction, the small but essential dose, we turn to television and DVDs.

And so what does that tell us about ourselves? Are our own lives so lacking in excitement, pleasure of relationship, and creative imagination?

I suspect the need for fantasy and distraction is so large because when we lift our eyes from the bench tops of our daily lives, what we see on the horizon may be more frightening than anything we would find in the movies. Global warming as a single issue would be enough to scare the pants off anyone willing to look at it directly and face its implications. We are failing to face the need for drastic change in our use of energy and the earth's resources. We are failing to address the world's poverty and the social issues that are the roots of terrorism. United States foreign policy has pushed us closer to the brink of international chaos. Add to that, the loss of nearly all manufacturing capacity in the USA and our dependency on imported energy and consumer goods. We have created a nation of helpless, distracted souls caught up in a desperate search for greater distraction.

There is something in my half Scandinavian heritage that asks the question, "Why should I spend money for those things I could do or make for myself?" Call me a cheapskate. So What? This simple starting point leads to simple pleasures that weave a fabric of community: each thread a skill developed locally and shared with neighbors and friends. There are essential values in the small scale economy of individual craftsmen that over time has the power to transform. Using the materials at hand in our own communities and the skills we can develop in our own hands, we discover simple power to transform the world and our relationships with each other. We are required to put aside our distractions and invest in our own creative power. It is not the same as sitting at the multi-plex, powerless zombies pulled by the screen to the edges of our seats. It is better, richer and in time more deeply rewarding. I call it the wisdom of the hands.