A bit of advice for my friends deconstructing their faith.
The junkyard is where things are taken apart. There’s a reason people in the business called them auto dismantling centers! We earned our living by stripping cars of every valuable part, then selling the bits and pieces to our customers.
And what did our customers do once they bought those parts? They fixed their car. They made something better.
I admired our customers. They had a finished product. It ran well, or it looked good, or was more whole. They didn’t just strip something apart in a few moments of energetic rage. At the risk at stretching the analogy too far, they healed something that was broken.
To this day I’m not very good at fixing things. Just recently I needed to replace the battery in a riding mower. It took me about 90-seconds to find the battery, remove the three screws to get the shroud off, undo the safety bracket, and take the cables off the posts.
Then it took me 90-minutes — 90-minutes!!! — and two trips to the hardware store to put it back together. Sheesh.
Deconstructing is something I grew up doing. I’m good at it. I know from first hand experience that it is incredibly messy, often loud, even boisterous. In the midst of the chaos, valuable things break or are misplaced. It’s easy to scrape your knuckles or twist your back. Regrettably, sometimes you cut corners and smash things with a hammer. You might swear at your colleagues and deconstruct them too.
And when you are all done, well, it isn’t very pretty.
A key to taking something apart is minimization. Don’t waste time or energy on a part that isn’t in the way. Don’t dismantle something that has more value whole. Do it all quickly, because the customer is eagerly waiting for you to finish.
And don’t be surprised by the complexity of it all. You will need parts inside parts, and when you operate at that deeper level you will be shocked, maybe even in awe, at how everything is connected.
But this is the most important bit of advice I have for you: don’t forget that the point of deconstructing something is to then put it back together better. Remember that it takes a lot more time to put something together than to take it apart. Have a plan for the reconstruction. Schedule it. Go at the pace you need to get it right. If you need to go back to the store to get the right part or tool, just see that as part of the process.
Finally, don’t forget that this whole process is done by hand. You deconstruct by hand. You rebuild by hand. Greasy hands.
It’s not easy. But trust me, it’s worth it.
I was, and still am, good at taking things apart. But it was the people who could put it all back together who I admired.