Lasers, Levels, and Plumb Bobs

If you’ve ever taken on a home renovation project, you know the difficulty that comes from what your eyes tell you and what your laser, level, or plumb bob tells you. These items are intriguing to me. Useful tools to tell me what is actually true even if the sight lines lie.

My current project, shoring up a poorly constructed lean-to off of my garage. My issues include a poorly constructed retaining wall with no drainage plan. Railroad ties that are rotting and someone decided that helping it looked like using spray foam to fix the rot (solid plan). 4X4 support posts mounted on said rotting wall. The best moment to prove a failed understanding of correct engineering is the use of 2X4X10s as the beam holding the rafters in Northern MN where holding up 36 inches of ice and snow is a must( 2 2X10X8’s is the recommended beam at minimum).

I’m in the process of a complete foundation overhaul, then taking out the old mess. I’m in the middle of trying to discover the new line I should take. Measurements are all over the place, nothing is level, nothing matches the current garage, no level is long enough, I’m left to my laser. Laser’s don’t lie, but to look at what it’s telling me, seems to be… well, a lie. So who or what am I going to trust?

Our society at this moment in history is experiencing the same upheaval. Right, wrong, justice, equality are more like a punchline of satire rather than an objective truth that is self-evident. Who do I trust, are police always unjust when stopping crime or unjust when they are unjust in the middle of stopping crime? Why are the police even needing to be there to stop a crime? If crime wasn’t happening they wouldn’t be there. Are there places police are being unjust when their isn’t even anything criminal going on there?

The search warrant on the wrong house breaks my heart. The culpable officers are the ones asking for the warrant to the wrong address. Everything beyond that is a horrible tragedy. What homeowner with a gun wouldn’t fire shots to such an intrusion and what officer wouldn’t fire back when getting shot at. From my look at justice, the officers who wrote down the address have more blame than the ones serving the warrant. They wouldn’t even be there to make the mistake if things were done right.

Here I am fixing my broken property trying to find the truth. Here we are trying to fix a broken society without a level, or a plumb bob, or a laser.

I wonder if we could ever get to the base problem in all of these matters? I wonder if anyone could stop long enough to look at the actions of each individual and hold them accountable for their actions? I wonder how often the sight lines are incompatible with a laser that could penetrate down to the marrow,” judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart!”

I wonder if anyone wants to stop fixing the bad construction, and dig out some new pillars. Lives matter, sin ruins everything, God’s desire has always been redemption, and that there are levels, lasers, and plumb bobs that don’t lie and using them could rebuild something that would last and that would be just,right, fair, unmistakable.

Truth hurts, but it also leads to construction that can bring life.