Mang Lope

Mang Lope (God bless his soul) was an old carpenter who used to come around the house every so often to do odd jobs for my parents. He made a living this way, and raised all his sons AND their respective families on the earnings he made from the work he did. More of a craftsman than a carpenter, Mang Lope was (and probably still is) the only carpenter who could take a discarded piece of plywood and turn it into a wooden masterpiece. My mother said that Mang Lope was already doing work for my grandmother way back when my mother was still a hot, single Babe of her time.

Nothing was wasted with Mang Lope: for him, everything had a use, and there was a use for everything. I remember watching him work and staring at his home made toolbox that was filled with every sort of carpentry junk I could think of: bent and rusted nails, rolls of yarn or nylon string, screws of all shapes and sizes, pieces of aluminum and other metals, bottlecaps, an old nail file -- everything, but the tools. These he kept in a smaller box - also homemade.

Everytime his old bespectacled eyes saw something on the ground, he would pick it up and study it with the intensity of an old jeweler studying a rough diamond before striking the first blow. He got mad when we threw away anything "useful" -- which, in his case, was almost everything we had to throw.

He was my inspiration for doing well in my Work Education classes -- and many times I would show him what I had done as projects in school (my folding table and chair, my magazine rack, my toothbrush holder -- I wonder where they all are now?). Of course, he ALWAYS saw some areas for improvement.

Many of his materpieces can still be seen in my mothers' home: the rack that holds the little, liquor-filled Dutch houses my parents collected on their various trips to Europe in their earlier years; the remnants of our "palochina" covered kitchen (which, mind you, lasted all of twenty plus years before they started to succumb to pest and decay), the little "boxes" made out of scrap wood but which he turned into nice little stands for my mothers' numerous vases. Most of these "masterpieces" he created out of pieces of old mahogany or narra furniture which had no use anymore.

And if that wasn't enough, he could turn a crumpled piece of metal into a useful tool. I remember a kettle we had - old as myself I believe (which isn't TOO old, really). It had a badly crumpled side and it's bottom was already covered in black soot that no amount of washing could remove.

Enter Mang Lope.

He took the poor crumpled kettle and brought it to the backyard where his tools were. An hour later he came back - carrying the same kettle, only this time it looked almost new!

Mang Lope, to my mind, was not just a carpenter... not just a craftsman -- but a carpenter who seemingly learned from the Master Carpenter Himself.

Jesus sees all of us the same way Mang Lope saw scrap wood and metal: Nothing is useless.

Everyday, Jesus takes us into his hands, turning us this way and that, looking us over with great intent and purpose. He looks through our roughness and our jagged edges - he considers where we have been broken and torn in two or more.

He figures out just were to place the blade of his saw in order to cut us. He spots the point where he drives home the nail in order to bind us.

He saws, cuts, hammers, sands, measures, traces, screws, glues, bores and fills us.

It could hurt sometimes. But in his hands, he isn't holding a piece of plywood or a crumpled piece of rusting metal.

He is holding his next masterpiece. Except it isn't finished yet.

Nothing in us or about us is useless in the hands of the Master.

Our sins? He uses them to roughen us up a little.

Our pains? He uses that to prune us a bit.

Our trials? He uses those to sand us down to size

His death? He used that to drive home the point.

The point is: No matter who you are, or what you've been through -- you could be torn and beaten and roughened and crumpled and rusted and bent -- it doesn't matter. You are still useful in the eyes of the Master Carpenter.

Mang Lope took a crumpled, soot encrusted poor excuse of a pot - and turned it into a kettle that could almost pass as brand new.

Imagine what more Jesus could do with you.