Consequently, on one particular Thursday afternoon I made my usual trip to the tool window. Checking out my hand-held die grinders, from there I went to the task at hand. Sitting in the shop on heavy duty trestles was a very large front-fender finishing die. The cast steel die was made to form a 1967 Chevrolet front fender forward crown. The heavy form would stamp the final shape. It would also correctly crease the pointed end on the fender. The job of precisely fitting the top and lower dies had been given to me as part of a special effort. The effort was said to be critical. “Why so?” I had first asked. Very simply put… the die did not work. It damaged the fender metal. You see, between the ’66 and ’67 Chevrolet full-sized cars the manufacturer had changed the body lines of the front fenders. By doing so, they’d created fenders with sharper, tighter creases to the leading edge of the older year design. After the new design had been approved by the car maker and the first die was machined and smoothed, a few trial stampings were then made, They all failed miserably. The first sheet metal cutting and forming dies made the initial overall shape satisfactorily, but the final stamping die would split the metal. A crack appeared right on the peak at the nose of the |
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fender. The crease would tear open under the stamping pressure. The stretched metal was becoming too thin. At the time, I recall that entire job as miserable. The futility felt by me in doing that task describes for me what I often read from scripture about Maunday Thursday. God must have suffered worse. A flaw seems to appear beneath the surface during the Last Supper account. We know by the prayer spoken by Jesus during that event, that the pressure my Lord must have felt was likely very great as he prepared to wash his disciples’ feet. You see, he was grinding down toward his last days of ministry with them. He was trying to impress on them the final form of the one holy and apostolic Church. You see, the disciples were supposed to one day be like him. Both he and his Father were one, and they... as |
The Life Worth Living: Faith in Action By Byron L. Sherwin |