The Tallest Building in the World

Do we imagine that the tallest building in the world will outlive the oldest tree?

Soul, Spirit, and the Corn Meal Grinder

A friend who has a booth in an antique mall often wants me to fix some old broken thing he has found lying around somewhere. I used to do a lot of metal work: everything from art work to truck frame rebuild, and I'll still do some metal work now and then. A few days ago this friend showed up with a cast iron hand-crank grain mill. The thing was probably made in the mid 1800s and it was obvious that it had been left out in the rain for the last 80 years or so. He opened the trunk. I took one look at it and I said "It can't be fixed". The front casting with its adjuster nut was just gone, and the cast iron case and the mill-burrs had so rusted together as to be visually indistinguishable.  It was obvious to me that this abandoned and abused mill was gone beyond repair. He asked me to give it a go anyway, so I said "Well, let's see what we can do".

The rear casing was rusted fast to the crankshaft so I put the rosebud tip on the acetylene torch and slowly heated the rear case red hot. This expanded the size of the shaft fitting and granulated the rust. The shaft and the inner burr tapped out of the casing.

Cast iron is brittle and large pieces heated to high temperature must be heated slowly and evenly or the metal will crack because of expansion differential in the iron. I took the rosebud and slowly heated up the mill case. At high temperature iron separates from heavy caked rust because the rust is even more brittle than the iron. After heating the case to just shy of red-hot I tapped the stationary inner burr with a two-pound hammer and a heavy steel punch and it popped right out.

We chipped out the flake rust and wire-brushed all the parts. Reinventing the missing adjustable front case was much simpler than I had thought it would be, and to my amazement the thing was usable.

Thinking about this project (which I had scorned on my own) it occurred to me that human souls damaged beyond repair can awaken in spirit: that our humanity is not the limit of our being; and however damaged our soul may be, the spirit which is the essence of our being can be brought to the fore and redeem our existence.

Wisdom, Knowledge, Information

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not enlightenment.