Hot Coffee is great. Orange-mocha Frappaccinos can really help you sort through these important issues
Lukewarm is no good. Of course, this blog here craftsmanship and concrete and the point is that uninspired work just sucks. Even God says " 'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16)
My motivation is pretty simple. I know that I want to fill my days and get paid enough to feed my family meeting a basic human need in a way that is clever enough to not be done as much as it should be. People need homes>homes require floors>nothing is less likely to wear out or fall out of fashion than a polished+stained concrete floor. Out of this clear simplicity, we are passionate to create value in this field. We aren't cool or lukewarm about our work. We bring the hot.
This is where the battle rap starts:
We have character and competence, and not everybody does. Out of our character, we develop competence. Out of their poor character, their competence is eroded. They get distracted, burnt out, fall to drinking, try being a cop or whatever, don't stay physically/mentally/spiritually strong, etc.
Element7concrete has a local competitor that has been scoring and staining concrete floor nearly as long as I've been alive, and yet compare their work:
with ours:
Our circles are perfectly round. Our proportions are tight. Their copy of our design (they didn't try the hard stuff until we got in the game) is lumpy and wack. Now this is frankly not really tough to do, but our character demands that we become competent to do it correctly, or we don't do it at all. Most people trying to compete with us do this work because they don't know anything better to do.
Concrete flooring is inherently imperfect - notice the patch in the photo of our project above. However, when you can trust your artisans as world-class, the patches can be embraced as a nuance of the material. If you do not have someone genuinely good doing the work, minimalism becomes half-assed and efficiency becomes cheapness. As the great American author O'Shea Jackson (Ice Cube) once wrote "If you want it raw now, make the call now...I got it all day, in the hallway
..come on home - holla at your boy". We'll keep bringing it.
So sad to see you have known the Word of God yet allow yourself to continue to be pulled into this carnal world; a servant to your own selfish insecurities.
ReplyDeleteMy brother, the next time you dive into your bible to manipulate the powerful scriptures in favor of your faltered point of view, you may want to stop by Prov 16:28, which teaches us "A perverse man spreads strife, And a slanderer separates intimate friends."
Perhaps, then, have a gander at James 4:11, "Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother, or judges his brother, speaks against the law, and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge of it."
Of course, be sure to also look over Philippians 4:8 which reads, "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things."
And finally, lest we forget Ephesians 4:29, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear."
You go ahead and continue "bringing it", we'll continue to pray you find the peace and content in your life only God can bestow.