(From William Pratney, Winkie’s son)

Hi everyone. I just thought I’d post something Winkie had written prior to Christmas, last year. It was written and given to me, so it is personal, but due to its rich content, I think some of you may be able to appreciate it as well, and see that the bulk of it could be used outside of the context in which it was originally given. On the front, the card reads, …”I must be about my Fathers business” Luke 2:49

(Inside)
To William my beloved son
One Day After Thirty -He was thirty when he laid aside
The tools a father’s trade had taught him
The chisels, saws and adzes
That caught the rough and un-hewn wood
To plane it straight and true
He was thirty when he put them up forever
Those things he learned to make the crooked good
Those disciplines to fashion something new

Ahead of him was time uncharted
Ahead of him were things unknown
He was thirty when He went into the wilderness
He was thirty when He left his home
I sometimes wonder what He thought then
If He would ever get to do
The things that others talked about Him
The things the Book brought into view

He gathered friends who likewise dreamed dreams
And left their little lives to pledge with Him
Their hearts, their honor and their sacred fortunes
To take a chance that came but once to save a world
To change it all for unseen crowds to come in time
To walk their steps and likewise love
The things His flag unfurledHis life, they say, was all too short
If only He had had more day!
What might He otherwise have wrought
With chairs and tables, useful things
The practical made beautiful, the ordinary made lovely
Why lay aside the hammer and the nails
When he could have changed the world
With what he knew and how he could
Work wonders when he cut the wood?

He left it all behind at thirty but in the not-far future
He would see it all come back one day to Him
When someone else would cut the wood He carried
And lay it straight and Him along its planed and naked length
Waiting for the hammer and the nails and the board
To finish the work and leave with the world forever
The mark of His hands and what we understand
Now will never be forgotten –
What He wrought with a tree
When the world knew that He
Had laid it aside.

From Dad: December 17, 2009