The Vineyard Does Not Lie

Reflections from the Drive on Day 19 of the Pruitt Project

Beginning the Drive

Beginning the drive. Day 19 of the Pruitt project. And I think, at least for a while, it should be the final day out there. There are still a lot of small things to close out, which is usually how the end of a job feels. The big things are done, or almost done, but the little things still matter. Weatherstripping has to be put on. Hardware has to be closed out. Paint has to be finished. Some of the hardware still has to be restored and installed, and that hardware itself is a new feature for these windows, even though it is antique. So there is this strange thing happening where something old is being brought in as something new, and that feels right to me. That is a lot of what Window Craft is anyway. It is not novelty. It is not invention in the modern sense. It is remembering something that was already true and giving it a way to function again.

So I am driving in, and while I am driving, I am thinking about my role in this movement that is emerging around me. People are beginning to seek me out. They are asking questions. They are asking about collaboration. They are asking about workshops. They are asking about growing people. They are asking how to build something. And I am starting to realize that I cannot simply answer technical questions anymore as though the technical question is the real question. A lot of times the technical question is just the surface. Underneath it is a deeper question. How do I form people? How do I grow a team? How do I know who is real? How do I find the right people? How do I keep them? How do I build something that lasts?

And I do think that what they are actually asking for, whether they know it or not, is a school. They are asking for entrance into a process. They are asking for a way to come under something that is tested and true. I have not yet fully established the stable platform where a person can enter into my school of Window Craft, so to speak, but I can feel that this is what is being asked of me. The structure does not fully exist yet, but I can see it. I can see the outline of it. I can see the doorway. I can see people standing outside of it, asking if there is a way in.

The Memory of a True Instructor

I was thinking about my martial arts instructor, Master White. He led me and my family, including my two oldest boys, to the national championships in taekwondo - several times. I won national championships in several events. One of my sons won too. Another did very well. And none of that happened by accident. None of it happened because we were just talented and made up our own way as we went. It happened because we submitted ourselves to his system. We trained under him. We paid him. Over time we paid him a lot of money, and he invested in us too. It was a real exchange. There was honor in it. There was discipline in it. There was trust in it.

And one of the things I remember about Master White is that he was clearly the leader, but he did not have to lord it over anybody. He did not have to announce it constantly. He just acted the part. He walked the walk. The authority was there because the fruit was there. We, as students, did everything we could to do what he told us to do. We trained the way he advised. We trusted the corrections. We trusted the sequencing. We trusted the repetition. And in doing that, he led us to championships. That was remarkable. And I am starting to see that the same thing is true here.

You do not get to a championship by loose collaboration. You get there by submission to a process. You get there by discipline, correction, repetition, mirrors, and a tested way. That does not mean the instructor becomes a tyrant. It means the instructor carries a system that can produce fruit if the student is willing to enter it honestly. And that is what I am realizing about Window Craft. People may come to me asking for help, but the help cannot just be a few tips. It cannot just be a list of tools. It cannot just be a borrowed method. It has to be an invitation into the process.

The Work Is Internal and External

The thing that landed on me this morning is that the work is both internal and external. That is a major shift in the way people think about this. Most people look at window restoration and they think about the outward work. They think about the sash, the frame, the glazing, the paint, the hardware, the ropes, the weights, the weatherstripping, the tools, the shop, the business. And all of that matters. But without the inner work, it is very hard to do the outer work. Really, I think it becomes impossible to sustain the outer work properly without the inner work.

The inner work is where the authority comes from. The inner work is where sequencing is formed. The inner work is where patience is formed. The inner work is where a person learns to tell the truth about what they are actually seeing. The inner work is where a person stops pretending that a thing is good enough when the window itself is saying otherwise. The inner work is where a person accepts correction from the work, from the tool, from the timing, from the failed fit, from the bad paint line, from the sash that will not move the way it should move.

That is why the work becomes a mirror. The window tells the truth. The sash tells the truth. The frame tells the truth. The time it takes tells the truth. The job flow tells the truth. The team tells the truth. The vineyard does not lie. If a man lacks sense, his vineyard will eventually reveal it. If a wall is broken down, if thorns have grown over everything, if the field is wasted, that condition is not random. It is the outward manifestation of something inward. And if a person wants to join this movement, they are really asking for diagnosis. They are asking to look at their vineyard and see what it is actually producing.

The Field of the Man Lacking Sense

That passage from Proverbs 24 keeps coming back to me. The man passes by the field of the sluggard and the vineyard of the man lacking sense, and he observes it, and he receives instruction. That is such a powerful idea because he does not merely see a neglected property. He sees a revelation. He sees a man through his field. He sees the invisible through the visible. He looks at the broken wall and the overgrowth and the lack of care, and he learns.

I passed by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of the man lacking sense, And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles, its surface was covered with nettles and its stone wall was broken down. When I saw, I reflected upon it. I looked and recieved instruction. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest And your poverty will come as a robber and your want like an armed man" Proverbs 24:30-34

That is what I feel like the historic house community is asking us to do. We have to pass by the vineyard and actually look. Not pretend. Not sentimentalize it. Not create a preservation fantasy where everyone is doing good work just because they say the right words. We have to look at what is actually happening. Are the windows being restored? Are craftsmen being formed? Are teams being produced? Are communities gaining capacity? Are houses being served? Are people being changed? Is fruit coming out of the wine press?

And if the answer is no, then we have to be honest. The field is telling us something. The broken wall is telling us something. The absence of craftsmen is telling us something. The inability to produce is telling us something. And if we do not let the mirror speak, then we cannot grow. We just keep walking past the field pretending it is not as bad as it is.

The Man Who Plants a Vineyard

Then my mind went to the passage in Matthew 21, where the landowner plants a vineyard, builds a wall around it, digs a wine press in it, and erects a tower. And what struck me this morning is that the man plants the vineyard because he has the internal authority to plant it. Not permission authority. Not borrowed authority. Not associative authority, where he is standing next to somebody else who knows what they are doing. Actual authority. Demonstrated authority. The kind of authority that comes from knowledge, experience, wisdom, and the ability to do the thing.

Nobody in the passage stops and asks whether he knows how to plant a vineyard. It is assumed by the fact that he plants one. But that is not a small thing. How does a man plant a vineyard if he does not know how? I cannot go out and be a farmer today just because I like the idea of farming. I do not know the first thing about it. I could start learning. I could plant a garden and fail with cucumbers and lettuce and cabbage, and maybe I could try a watermelon. And if I grow one cucumber, then maybe I can grow two. If I grow two, maybe I can grow four. That is how capacity begins. But it would not make me a farmer yet. It would make me a man beginning to learn.

So to plant a vineyard, you have to already possess something internally. The vineyard outside is the fruit of the vineyard inside. You cannot build externally what you do not carry internally. You can try. You can put up a sign. You can use the words. You can copy the structure. You can borrow the aesthetics. But eventually it comes up empty because things will be missing. The wall will not be right. The wine press will not function. The tower will not watch over anything. The fruit will not come.

Borrowed Forms and Empty Structures

This is where I started thinking about a man named Jeremy. He messaged me and was complimentary, and I appreciated that. He has his own business. He wants to grow people. He wants the right people. He is asking some real questions, and I believe they are legitimate questions. But the framework he is looking through appears to be borrowed from another shop and another way of seeing the work. He is trying to improve on something he came out of, but he is still working from borrowed forms. And borrowed forms are not the same as internal authority.

I do not say that as a moral accusation. I am not saying he is doing something wicked. I am saying there is a structural emptiness there. He wants to recruit people into something, but there may not yet be enough actual structure for them to enter. He wants them to be passionate, assertive, and leadership-minded, but passionate about what? Assertive inside what order? Leading toward what tested process? If the truth of the work is not there as the foundation, then the people can feel it even if they cannot name it.

That is something I have seen over and over again. People know when there is no real path forward. They may not consciously say, 'There is no demonstrated authority here.' They may not know those words. But they sense it. They sense the absence of a road. They sense the absence of a tested way. And in the absence of reality, they start seeking their own truth. Then the blind begin leading the blind. One person leaves the first blind thing and starts another blind thing, trying to make it better, but without internal authority, the same emptiness follows him.

The Mirrors That Burn Away Falsehood

This is why a real Window Craft outpost cannot be built on enthusiasm alone. It cannot be built on branding. It cannot be built on borrowed language. It cannot be built on someone wanting to be part of something without submitting to the truth of the work. If an outpost is going to be real, it has to be based on truth. It has to be based on the truth of the work and what the work reveals.

That means there have to be mirrors. The mirrors expose things. They burn away things that are false. And those mirrors are not mean. They are merciful. A stopwatch can be merciful. A sash that does not fit can be merciful. A bad sequence can be merciful if it teaches you. The problem is not that the mirror exposes weakness. The problem is refusing to look into it.

There are ways people are pursuing this work that ignore the mirrors. They ignore the falsehoods of productivity. They try to reproduce the results, but they cannot because they are not aligned with the truth of the work. They can try very hard. They can have good intentions. They can have energy. They can have business plans. But if they will not submit themselves to the reality of the mirrors that point out flaws and mistaken ways of doing things, they cannot grow.

The work has its own truth. A window either works or it does not. A team either produces or it does not. A process either multiplies or it does not. A vineyard either bears fruit or it does not. And when it does not, we have to stop blaming the weather, the people, the market, the house, the customer, the economy, and everything else, and we have to ask what the vineyard is revealing.

Unless the Lord Builds the House

There is that passage that says unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. That is what I feel underneath all of this. If the foundation is not truth, then the labor becomes vain. You can work hard and still build nothing. You can organize and recruit and market and talk and inspire and still have emptiness at the center. And people can sense emptiness. They may not know how to diagnose it, but they can sense it.

That is why I keep thinking about the foundation. If God is not the foundation of the thing, and if truth is not the foundation of the thing, then what are we even building? Ideas? Suggestions? Personal ambition? A business model? A social group? A preservation-flavored organization? That is not enough. There has to be a truth that all of us submit to together. Otherwise we do not really have anything in common.

And when I say truth, I am not talking about abstract religious language only. I am talking about the truth that shows up in the work. I am talking about what happens when the sash is stripped, glazed, painted, installed, and tuned. I am talking about whether the frame actually functions. I am talking about whether the team can complete the work. I am talking about whether the production is real. I am talking about whether people are formed through the process. The spiritual truth and the practical truth are not separate here. They are woven together.

The Red Sea and the Camp

I also found myself thinking about Moses and the Red Sea. I know this is bold language, and I know it can sound strange from the outside, but this is how I understand the nature of the work. There are things I have been able to walk through that I do not fully know how to explain except that the gift and the calling are there. I have walked through red seas. The wind and the waves have parted, and I have been allowed to pass.

Other people see that and try to do the same thing, but they are like Pharaoh and his army. They enter the same path outwardly, but they are not part of the same camp. They are not submitted to the same truth. They are not walking in obedience to the same process. So the same sea that opens for one group closes over another. That is a fearful thought, but it is also clarifying.

If I am called to lead people through this, then they have to be part of the camp. They have to be willing to walk the way. They have to submit to the process. They cannot just imitate the outward event and expect the same result. Pharaoh's magicians could imitate some signs, but they could not do what Moses was doing. There is a difference between imitation and authority. There is a difference between copying the movement and carrying the calling.

The Locusts and the Cut-Off Craftsmen

Then I went to the prophet Joel, and that language hit me hard. Awake, you drunkards. Look at what is happening. Everything is withered. Everything is dying. The fields are being eaten. The fruit is gone. The joy is drying up. And the people are not seeing it. They are asleep inside the collapse.

That feels like the historic house community in many ways. The locusts have come in. They keep eating what could have been fruit. They consume the vineyard and leave it stripped. And one of the reasons this happens is because craftsmanship is cut off. When the craftsmen are cut off, the community loses the ability to repair itself. It loses the ability to produce. It loses the ability to defend what it has inherited. The walls start to fail. The windows rot. The knowledge disappears. The people talk about preservation while the actual production capacity dies underneath them.

If the craftsman is designed by God to produce, and then the craftsman is cut off from production, something goes wrong all the way down. It is not just that a window does not get fixed. The whole order begins to unravel. The vineyard no longer has the people it needs to tend it. And if there is going to be any real restoration, there has to be an awakening. There has to be a call. People have to wake up and see what is happening before the locusts eat everything.

Outposts as Church Plantings

This is why I think this affects how outposts are formed. I really do think of them as church plantings. I know I am speaking forth something that does not exist yet, but I can see it happening. I can see outposts forming in historic house communities where the right people are called, equipped, and sent. I can see the tools there. I can see the training there. I can see the wine press there. I can see the local vineyard being served by local craftsmen who have submitted themselves to the process.

But if an outpost is going to be an actual Window Craft outpost, it has to be more than a shop. It has to be more than a business. It has to be more than a place where somebody owns a Sash Factory or has the right tools. It has to be a truth-aligned production environment. It has to be a place where the mirrors are preserved and not hidden. It has to be a place where the work can expose what is false and form what is true.

That is why 'church planting' feels more accurate to me than franchising. A franchise can reproduce a brand. A church planting has to transmit doctrine, culture, discipline, correction, accountability, and a shared submission to truth. A franchise can copy the outward form. A church has to carry the life. And what I am trying to reproduce in Window Craft is not merely outward form. I am trying to reproduce a living way.

Side Investor, Guide, and Steward

This also helps me understand my own role. I am in an awkward position in some ways because, in the field, it is still basically me and my trusted finisher, Israel. So from the outside, somebody could say, 'Well, where is the big organization? Where are all the teams?' And that is fair. But I do not think my role is limited to the size of the crew standing next to me on a given day. I think I am more in the position of guide, steward, and maybe even something like a side investor in the people and companies that are trying to emerge around this.

I was thinking about the idea of an accelerator, where a group invests in founders, but they do not just give money to anybody. They are looking for the right people, the right soil, the right willingness to be shaped. In my case, the investment is not merely money. It is knowledge, diagnosis, tools, process, correction, and access to the truth of the work. But in order to receive that investment, a person has to submit to the process. They have to submit to the truth. We all do.

That is the part that matters. We all have to be willing to submit to the truth together. If we are not, then what do we have in common? We do not have anything in common except ideas and suggestions. And ideas and suggestions are not enough to build a vineyard. They are not enough to build a wall. They are not enough to dig a wine press. They are not enough to raise up craftsmen who can actually serve a historic house community.

What It Means to Invite People In

So the question I am carrying now is how to invite people in properly. How do I lead people into this movement? How do I onboard them? How do I help them move in the right direction? How do I coach them, mentor them, guide them, and, in a sense, pastor them? How do I give them what they need so that, in turn, the historic house community can have what it needs?

That is not a small question. Because if I invite people in too casually, they may think this is just collaboration, just networking, just trading ideas, just mutual affirmation. But that is not what this is. This is not about two people standing beside each other pretending all ways are equal. There is a way. There is a process. There is a wine press. There are mirrors. There is truth. And if a person wants the fruit, they have to enter through the truth.

That does not mean I become harsh or controlling. It means I become clear. It means I have to stop apologizing for the fact that the system has order. It means I have to stop acting like demonstrated authority is arrogance. It is not arrogance if the fruit is real and the burden is stewardship. Master White did not have to apologize for being the instructor. He just had to be faithful to what had been entrusted to him. That is the model I keep returning to. Walk the walk. Carry the authority. Let the fruit testify.

The Miracle of the Work

As I drive toward the project, I am reminded of the miraculous nature of the work itself. I look at these windows, and I know what has happened there. I know the decisions that were made. I know the hidden things that had to be solved. I know the sequencing. I know the moments where it could have gone wrong. And sometimes I still do not know how it came out the way it did except that the hand of God was in it.

People can look at the finished work and explain it in all kinds of ways. They can say it is experience. They can say it is practice. They can say it is talent. And all of that is partly true. I have practiced. I have labored. I have failed. I have spent years doing this. But what they may not see is that this is also my gift and my calling. This is something that was given to me. The spirit of craftsmanship is not just a slogan to me. It is a reality. And when that spirit comes through the work, God is glorified whether people know how to name it or not.

That does not mean I am the only person who can do it. It does not mean nobody else can carry it. In fact, the whole point is that others must carry it. But they cannot carry it by imitation alone. They have to be formed. They have to enter the way. They have to submit to the process. They have to allow the mirrors to do their work. They have to become the kind of people who can tend the vineyard from the inside out.

A Prayer for Strength

And so this is where I find myself this morning. I am agreeing to do it. I am agreeing to walk. I am agreeing to take up my pallet and walk, knowing that as I walk, the old way will diminish and start to fall by the wayside. That is a serious thing. It is humbling. It is heavy. It is not something to grab carelessly. But I do believe I am supposed to help these people. I believe there are plenty of people and plenty of resources waiting to be assimilated, waiting to be put together, waiting for the right people to wake up and come on board and do this thing.

So, dear Lord, make me strong. Give me the strength, the insight, and the courage to do the things, to lead the people, to invite the people, to nurture the people, and to help the people the way You would have me to do. Bless this movement. Keep it. Make it grow for Your own glory. Let people see Your glory through craftsmanship and through the life of the artisan. Let the vineyards be restored. Let the wine presses work again. Let the craftsmen return. Let the outposts become places of truth, production, formation, and life.

Because this is my gift and my calling. And the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.