Chapter 5 - Hollowing the Loghouse

Ephesians 4:11-12 talks about how Jesus gave different people different gifts (skills, talents, and interests) and he wants all of them to be in the church. I wonder why that is. This story helped me to understand.

One day, as the legend goes, Miss Felicity Fox and Bessie Beaver were given the very same job, and neither one of them liked it. Mr. Mole, the foremole of all the Builders, was in charge of turning a giant fallen tree into a shelter for all the animals of Old Raven's Forest. There needed to be room for any others who might come looking for safety from the Winter TornadaCaneIzzard, the worst storm the Forest had ever seen. But Mr. Mole had dug out all the space under the log that he could. Now he needed rooms inside the log. It was going to truly become the Loghouse.

The Adventurer Felicity Fox thought that she was the obvious choice for this job. In her backpack with a thousand multicolored pockets, she always had exactly the right thing for whatever situation she was in. Felicity figured she could get this done all on her own in a couple days.

The Builder Bessie Beaver also thought she was the obvious choice for this job, because, well, she's a beaver. Nobody in the whole forest knew as much as she did about wood carving. Bessie figured she could get this done all by herself in just one day.

The two stood next to each other, arms crossed, looking at the log. They were starting with the Dining Hall, right in the center of the log. It needed a door. Felicity reached into a purple pocket, pulled out a sharpened ice cream scoop, and walked up to a spot to start carving.

"No!" yelled Bessie. "You can't start it there! The woodgrain there doesn't have enough structural integrity." Felicity huffed, then stepped back. Bessie said, "I've mapped it all out in my head. The door starts here," and her paw tapped a space two inches to the right of where Felicity had been.

Felicity said grumpily, "I would have figured it out. I always handle problems as they come."

They growled at each other for a moment, each one wishing the other wasn't there, then Bessie turned and started carving out the door.

After Bessie cleared enough room for the two of them, Felicity used her ice cream scoop to shave big chunks of wood out of the tree. Confidently and quickly, she moved tons of wood, trusting her paws to know what to do.

Until she heard a sharp crack. Felicity jumped back as the wood kept splitting up the wall she was carving. Felicity, her thoughts all whirling around as she tried to figure out which pocket had the thing she needed, said, "I don't know what to do!"

Bessie stepped calmly up. "Ah," she said, "You hit a vein in the wood. We just need..." her voice trailed off as her paws felt the grain, sliding over the crack. Then, tap, she used her smallest chisel to take out a single splinter of wood, and the crack stopped.

Felicity shuffled her feet, a little embarrassed, and said, "Thanks."

They continued working, Felicity going slow now, Bessie marking out the next wall. She knew the strongest parts of the log and built according to her plan. She was good at plans. Bessie knew that this was precisely where a door should be, and she calmly kept working.

Until she heard a soft hoot. Bessie froze. "That was a hoot," she said. "Logs do not hoot." Bessie poked a tentative chisel through the wood and opened a hole into an owl's house. Everything went topsy turvy when the tree fell, and the owl had been stuck inside ever since. Bessie yelped and said, "Ah! I don't know what to do!" A sideways owl house was not in her plan!

Felicity calmly came over. She reached into a turquoise pocket and pulled out a magnifying glass. "Owls love to look at things up close," Felicity said to Bessie as the owl hopped out of the hole. Felicity gave him the magnifying glass and he hooted happily outside.

Bessie and Felicity looked at each for a moment, each nodding in approval. "Shall we start on the kitchen?" Bessie asked. "You can handle any surprises."

"And you can tell me where to carve," Felicity said, smiling.

Well, that’s what the legend says, but I know one thing is true: Everybody brings different skills, and we need them all.