Safety 3rd

When I was a kid, my contractor-carpenter dad would bring home scrap blocks of wood for me to nail together. I could clean out all the nails in his tool bag as I learned that first rule of hammering: “Don’t hit the pink nail.” Often that comment came as I was running in the kitchen for ice.

One day I ran to meet the truck to see my daily haul of construction debris.
The truck bed looked empty. “Did you forget me?” I asked. No. He certainly didn’t. “Look there in the small white paper cup in the corner,” was all he told me.

A cup of sawdust? I incredulously dumped it out into my hand. There mixed with the sawdust was the first joint of a man’s finger!

(At eight years old this is definitely the most amazing thing I have ever found.) I started off across the yard to Dennis’s house.

“Wait,” my dad said. “Listen, look at me. Power tools will cut your fingers off.
You be careful. Think. Think stuff through before you do it. See the saw cut the board in your mind with your fingers out of the way. Then cut the board with your fingers out of the way.”

There is a sign on the warehouse door. We adopted it a month into our venture of Band-Aids, welding burns, splinters, small gouges, and other safety issues. It reads, “Safety 3rd.”

The warehouse we work in is real. It is a theatrical set with real ladders, scissor lifts, cables, motors, and tools. We have had 3rd and 4th graders on stage using chop saws, drills, screw guns and pneumatic nail guns.

We take the time to explain the need for hard hats, gloves, and safety glasses, but we let kids experience things they have never done before. Learning the Gospel calls for risk and a memorable experience.

In our world we shoot things out of canons. We fly rockets across the room.
We belay kids in safety harnesses 25 feet to the warehouse ceiling as they climb long ladders. Chucking rubber chickens across the audience. We drop all manner of things from the ceiling. We have had a river raft race in the room. Kids on bicycles, and hanging in balance scales over the stage.

There are times it looks to the audience we are taking great risks. We want it to look and feel that way. The Gospel for families is a risk. And you have to pay attention. You need to show caution. You need to use wisdom. But you can’t just sit on the sidelines.

So Safety 3rd. Go for it.