Got Skills?

The case for improving hands-on skills with hobbies and other interests. It's almost never a waste of time.

Life has sped up dramatically since April for me. So many things have happened. First, my niece got engaged and is planning a wedding for August. (If you think that’s fast, try three months. My husband and I got engaged on September 27 and we were married on December 27!) Anyway, two of my own skills are getting utilized for this wedding—sewing and music. I’m currently making her wedding dress and I’ll be playing my violin for her wedding.

She was here, all the way from Colorado last week for a dress fitting. While she was here and while we were waiting for the lace she’d ordered to arrive, we snuck in a quick day trip to Charleston, SC (the most beautiful city in South Carolina) as she’d never seen it before with all of its historical sites and beauty. Jonathon had been asked to speak that evening at a local activist group, so it all worked out quite nicely. However, it meant we were driving back home in the wee hours of the morning, and literally twenty minutes from home, we hit a deer. It was a sickening moment full of scraping metal. Thankfully, the deer did not go through our windshield and none of us inside the car were injured. (I hope the deer died quickly, but it happened so fast and it was so dark, we couldn’t see where it went afterwards.) The left hand blinker suddenly doubled its speed after the impact and we were wondering how extensive the damage was going to be.

We were able to drive all the home, however. The next day, surveying the bent up fender and smashed headlight, Jonathon started asking around for folks’ expertise and one of the gentlemen from our church told him to come on over to his house about five minutes away with the car because he had a car lift. I smiled when I heard this. I mean what are the odds that your close neighbor owns a car lift? Anyway, he and Jonathon got it up in the air and looked it all over and the only damage was cosmetic. (Thank you, Jesus!) And then another man from our church who happens to work on cars for a living, offered to help Jonathon fix it!

Well, all of these happenings got me thinking about how wonderful it is when people develop their God-given talents and skills over many years until they reach a place of much-needed expertise, and how wonderful it is when you can use your own God-given talents and skills (or equipment) to help and bless other people.

Perhaps this is unique to me, but I sometimes feel that we collectively look at hobbies or other interests as an indulgence if they don’t directly and immediately pay the bills. I have often guilt tripped myself for spending hours of the day sewing up clothes when other and more pressing tasks went undone. But I think this is wrong. Without putting in the time, sometime, for often years in advance, you won’t be ready to help when called upon. I can think of probably a dozen separate skills/crafts/abilities I’ve spent hours on through the years where this is true. For instance:

Sewing. At first, it was purely fun as a little girl because I had a doll I wanted to dress. And it’s still fun, but now it’s valuable. Without my skills, my niece would, this moment, be searching for a wedding dress that she felt comfortable in, was beautiful, and didn’t cost an arm and a leg and the future of her firstborn child. And now that I have so many years of sewing under my belt, I could take on paid sewing jobs if life ever required it.

Music. At first, it was a childish dream to become the next virtuoso on the violin. (That was never going to happen.) Or a soprano with an album out. (May happen one day. We’ll see.) But I am a very serviceable violinist and singer. I can play and sing and I sound good, though I’ll never be a soloist playing with all the major symphonies of the world. And because of all the time I put in developing my skills, I can teach. I have taught. Prior to marrying Jonathon, teaching music was how I paid my bills and I was good at it.

Baking. At first, it was a way to satisfy my girlish sweet tooth. But now, it’s kind of essential if I want to eat any baked goods at all. Since having to go gluten free by doctor’s orders, I’m really glad I spent all those hours in the kitchen. Because now, I bake my own gluten free bread out of necessity. It’s also a huge blessing to the many people at my church who can no longer tolerate gluten, of which there seem to be an increasing amount of late. At every church dinner and fellowship, I bring something that those with food sensitivities can eat and enjoy without fear of painful consequences later on.

Writing. At first, I was once again, just having fun or trying to make sense of my thoughts by writing about them, but now…well, it’s still not really paying, but you know. I have three hundred of you who like to read what I write every week, so that’s something! And with Substack’s set up allowing readers to support their favorite newsletters financially, it’s definitely paying more than it ever has in the past.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t despise small beginnings when it comes to something we’re taking an interest in or learning, and those skills can become extremely valuable to our friends and family later on.

In my subtitle, I remarked that this is almost never a waste of time. So, I should explain what I mean by that: If your interests and hobbies are sinful, then yes, to indulge them or spend years of your life on them, would be a tragic waste of time. Otherwise, they aren’t! And the good news is that the non-sinful hobbies and interests far outweigh the sinful ones anyway.

I am a realist optimist. I have often written about the problems in our society, how bad off we are morally and spiritually. I am painfully aware of how delicate our lifestyles are underwritten by technology, overseen by a bureaucratic class asleep at the wheel, all headed up by a president who cannot remember what day it is or where he’s at. And I have frequently, as in the last four years, written about how our lives are likely to change soon and get much harder in the near future.

But when I take a mental inventory of all the people I know, near and far, who have useful skills and know how to do stuff, I feel quite optimistic. When life does get hard, very hard, we will need to lean on each other for help.

So, if you feel your creative spirit leaning in a particular direction, but it seems a bit silly or not immediately valuable, just go for it. Bake the bread, grow the plants, build the things, make the model rockets and shoot them off (that’s for my husband), train the dogs, get the chickens and ducks, take the piano lessons, learn the old American dances, tinker with the machines, shoot the targets, write a hundred bad stories so you can finally write the one that grabs people’s hearts and lifts their souls to the heavens (that’s for me), hunt the deer, learn the plants, watch the birds, spin the fibers into threads, weave the fabric, card the wool… Because someday, someone will lean on you for knowledge only you have. And someday, that could mean the difference between expense and thrift, sadness and diversion, cold or warmth, hunger and nutrition…or even life and death.

That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…

P.S. If you enjoy reading my stuff, please consider upgrading your subscription from free to paid so I can keep setting aside the time to write pieces that aren’t boring! Because who wants to read boring stuff? It will also help me fund the process of getting my novel, 27, published and my first novel, The Pursuit of Elizabeth Millhouse, republished. Thanks for your consideration! Have a great week.