Episode 3: Peter Has A Close Shave
Peter (9 years), interested in things mechanical, volunteered his services several days a week (after school) in a local wood joinery shop. Here in a converted brewery, the smell of beer long since replaced by the heady fragrance of freshly-sawn pine, and the noisy clanking of bottles was replaced by the buzz of timber shaping and cutting machines. Here the busy craftsman and his equally talented wife fashioned rough timber into beautiful furniture. Childless, they adopted Peter for an hour or two each afternoon, so hot chocolate and jam scones always preceded his labour. For Peter, no special genius was required. Sometimes he stacked timber or swept up sawdust. Occasionally he helped to hold an item while glue clamps were applied or to help steady an extra large item while it was fed into an hungry planing machine or saw-bench. Always he was allowed to take home an off-cut or two, a few nails or screws, or wooden dowels to fashion some creation of his own. Mostly he just talked with youthful enthusiasm and stood by watching with fervent interest. On one sad occasion he stayed there on his own to answer the telephone or greet customers because, having witnessed the wife loose a finger while using the band-saw, the craftsman and his wife left him "in charge" while they hurried to the hospital.
Often they chatted about their God. The couple was Christian, but not religious. Unlike Peter, they attended no church, but they knew their God personally and shared their simple faith enthusiastically, reminding Peter often that God has a personal interest in each of us and that we all have our own Guardian Angel.
One particular incident gave them opportunity to remind him of this often. That day, Peter had been helping to hold a large glue-bound tabletop while the craftsman manoeuvred it across the circular saw bench. With such a large item covering the saw-bench, neither of them gave thought to a doweling drill on the same shaft as the saw-blade. This twist drill, revolving in unison with the blade, protruded out from the side of the bench and was protected only by a little metal shelf a few centimetres below it. As the pair slid the tabletop across the saw-bench, the spinning drill bit grabbed the front of Peter's cardigan. Within seconds, his head was being pulled downwards toward the fast rotating blade. Instantly, the machine was stopped by the quick-thinking craftsman, but momentum kept the blade spinning and the relentless drill was gathering up the frightened youth's cardigan and pulling him closer and closer to the deadly whining circle of hungry teeth. Peter's eyeball felt the brush of air from the blade as it loomed closer. Finally the craftsman wedged a piece of wood against the blade, stopping it suddenly just as it was beginning to lick the hair off Peter's forehead. With hearts pounding and breath hard to come by, they both sighed thanks to God.
Peter sensed the nearness of a God who had spared him, and often the craftsman and his wife, followers of their Master's trade, reminded the youth that God must have a special work for him, a lesson for Peter that is not finished yet.
-- Lionel Hartley, Not Finished Yet -- Chronicles in the Life of Peter Blank
"This serial saga, although novel, is not a novel. It is merely a series of true-life episodes highlighting the extraordinary working of an extraordinary God in a very ordinary life. Each episode contained a lesson for Peter Blank, a lesson we can all learn, from a lesson-book life that is not finished yet."
As first appeared in FreEzine Magazine July 2000 ff
