{"id":68765,"date":"2025-12-17T16:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cana.org\/les-outils-du-charpentier\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T16:15:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:15:51","slug":"les-outils-du-charpentier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cana.org\/en\/les-outils-du-charpentier\/","title":{"rendered":"The Carpenter’s Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christmas! It is the welcoming of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the One who gives Life! Here is a Swedish Christmas story. It invites us to reflect on relationships within our family: together, with our differences, how we can welcome Life by choosing to live in peace!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once upon a time, long ago, in a small northern village, there was a carpenter’s workshop. One day, when the Master was away, the tools gathered for a grand council on the workbench. The discussions were long and lively, even heated. The aim was to exclude a number of members from the tool community.
One spoke up: \u201cWe must,\u201d he said, \u201cexclude our sister the saw, for she bites and grinds her teeth. She has the grumpiest temper in the world.\u201d
Another said, \u201cWe cannot keep among us our brother the plane, who has a sharp temper and peels everything he touches.\u201d
\u201cAs for our brother the hammer,\u201d said another, \u201cI find him annoying. He is noisy. He is always banging away and getting on our nerves. Let’s exclude him.\u201d
“And what about the nails? Can we live with people who have such sharp characters? Let them go! And let the file and the rasp go too. Living with them is nothing but constant friction. And let’s get rid of the sandpaper, whose sole purpose in this workshop seems to be to always cause friction!”
Thus, the carpenter’s tools argued in great tumult. Everyone spoke at once. The story does not say whether it was the hammer that accused the saw and the plane and the file, but it is likely that this was the case, because at the end of the session, everyone found themselves excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The noisy gathering came to an abrupt end when the carpenter entered the workshop. Everyone fell silent when they saw him approach the workbench. He grabbed a plank and sawed it with his squeaky saw. He planed it with his sharp-edged plane, which peeled away everything it touched. The chisel, which cuts cruelly, our sister the rasp with her harsh language, and the sandpaper, which crumples, came into action one after the other. The carpenter then took our brothers, the sharp nails, and the hammer, which bangs and makes noise. He used all his tools with their nasty character to make a cradle to welcome an unborn child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the sung tale:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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