I grew up in a family of craftsmen. My grandfather was a cabinetmaker in Utrecht, the Netherlands. I still have some of his hand tools. My father was a woodworker. They were both professionals. I’ve done it on the side. All my sons do it. It’s in our genes.
My father was very odd in that he wasn’t in it for financial success. I put it like this sometimes: When financial success threatened, he succeeded in averting it. People needed cabinetry, and he loved the wood. He loved different kinds of wood so he’d collect all kinds of exotic woods and use them in various ways. I can still see him yet, rubbing his hands on the wood. I learned from him reverence for wood, letting the wood talk back to you as it were. Wood at some point says, “Look, I don’t want you to do this to me. You’re violating me. I wasn’t meant to be treated in this way.” I learned from him the craftsmanship to make it right and not to cut corners.
Later, when I tried to explain to students how to write a philosophy paper, I’d use the metaphor of craftsmanship. A good philosophy paper has some ideas but it also needs craftsmanship. You can’t just ooze big ideas. I would say, “The dados have to be tight.” I’d see the students looking around at each other as if to say, “Dados?” “The dovetailing has to be tight.” “Dovetails?” So I eliminated that. Well, I first tried to explain the metaphor and that got too complicated. Craftsmanship became for me an image for how philosophy papers ought to be written.
” Nicholas Wolterstorff: It’s tied together by shalom | Faith & Leadership
