Ah, the back of my neck feels tenseby 파란백조

A couple of days ago, the church I had been attending for a while moved right across the road to a building that was like a hidden treasure.

We did everything we could to avoid paying fees for the interior works and human resources. Since there were a lot of pre-pastors who were skilled like carpenters, we were almost able to build all of the furniture and therefore didn't spend much.

On another day, we replaced the ceiling in the hallway with a clean plasterboard, and I helped out as an assistant. After a pre-pastor measured the hallway length, I cut out a board and he glued it onto the ceiling, but since the board was really wide, I had to stand on a chair and hold one side of it while he was nailing the other side. As I did this a few more times, my arms began to hurt a lot. The pre-pastor also had to remove the nails from before, so his neck ached along with his arms.

It took a little more than three hours so my neck, arms and back got really tired. When I was looking at my pre-pastor, who said that he had strained the back of his neck, I was reminded of Michelangelo who made a fresco in the Sistine Chapel which took about four years.

The Sistine Chapel’s ceiling is about 20m high. Even when I constructed the ceiling of my church for just three hours, it hurt. So I could understand how much Michelangelo’s eyes, neck and back would have hurt from working for four years looking at the ceiling. However, he lived a long life of 90 years, and I have come to conclude that perhaps it was his love for the Divine and his passion for art that enabled him to overcome the physical pain of his work and live for that long.

As I am working, there are many times when I forget the purpose and just delve into the work. If one works while discussing with the person in charge, then the difficulties of the work will be forgotten and time will also fly by. Isn’t it really precious to be able to draw and work at a place upon which the Divine comes?

Whatever religion it may be, the mindset one has of the work to be done in a temple is different from the work done in the world because it is treated spiritually. Although I was only an assistant, I was filled with pride. How proud would Michelangelo have been after he finished his work which took four years to accomplish? He probably forgot about the pain coming from the back of his neck and instead looked at his work while confessing thanksgiving to the Divine.

“Lord! Although I have strained the back of my neck, it is still so satisfying. Thank you for allowing me to do such work.”