making a crematory urn box, part 2

Today I posted part 2 of Making a Crematory Urn Box to the Fine Woodworking website. Part one was posted earlier in the week.

Today in the wood shop, I will be sanding box lids, routing for lid pulls to fit and preparing stock for school on Monday.

Here in the US, there is a long tradition of involvement by religious institutions in the education of our children. Many of our first schools were religious ones, and even early public schools believed that religious instruction should be part of their mission. Conservative politicians now decry the absence of prayer in schools as being the cause of educational failure and moral decline in our culture. Parents in many cities make the choice between sending their children to either public school or to schools that have religious affiliations. The idea for many parents and politicians is that religious schools offer greater moral instruction, and that public schools do not.

The point should be made that instruction is useless or even damaging in comparison to experience, and that the values inherent in craftsmanship far exceed the emptiness of moral instruction. Telling children to be good is one thing, and offering them the opportunity to be good, and to arise in their highest capacities another. Making things of useful beauty, allowing voices to rise in harmony, using instruments of all kinds to create better, more meaningful lives for each other, their families and communities is a thing beyond the emptiness of mere instruction.

Make beautiful things, make music, make lives.

In the photo at left, you can see my current batch of finger-jointed boxes nearing completion. Each now is ready for me to sign, apply Danish oil, and attach pulls as shown in the box at center and below.

Make, fix and create...