I have never been able to build from imagination.  Creativity has never been my forte.  Other people provide the ideas.  I tweak them a bit here and there, and build whatever needs to be constructed.  Give me a broken object, and I reverse engineer it back to health.

I am a little disappointed to realize at forty-five that I am not creative.  I always wanted to be, and made more than a few attempts to make something amazing and different, but without much success.

My favorite comedian is Bill Cosby.  My mother had all of his comedy albums, and I could recite many of his bits by heart.  One of my favorite bits was titled "Ashtrays."   Bill would joke that no matter what he was assigned to make in shop it turned into an ashtray.  Very funny.  I think about that joke when I am tempted to be depressed about my lack of inventiveness.

I suppose I have a niche to fill, but I have not yet stumbled on it.  Maybe I will.  Maybe I can just be happy to be a builder and a fixer.  Builders and fixers make people happy.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

 Let me be an instrument of thy peace, oh Lord.