The Best Centerpiece for our Time
Reflecting on Platform Carts, Coffee Tables, and Humility
In high school I spent the summers working in the factory at Hamilton Caster & Mfg Co., the family business now 115 years running. One of Hamilton’s products is also one of the staples in its factory; namely, the wood platform cart.
Nearly everyday I would go out behind the factory to grab one of the two dozen wood carts crammed together and use it to move casters or other equipment from one area of the factory to another.
There were two great things about these carts. One, they could carry an immense amount of weight. I would pile rows of heavy duty casters upon every square inch of the cart. It might take a good tug to get the caster-filled cart rolling, but once rolling you were good to go.
Which was the other great thing about these carts: they rolled exceptionally well. Hamilton Caster has long prided itself on making truly great quality casters. Once a Hamilton cart is in motion, that cart-and-material move with a whimsical ease along the factory floor.
Strength and fluidity. Durability and motion.
Fast-forward to 2010 - ten years after the last time I worked in that factory.
“Bobby, those are what we use in the factory!” My dad processed his genuine shock aloud as he saw that Michelle and I had purchased an old wood, platform cart (admittedly, built by a Hamilton competitor). It now served as the coffee table in the living room of our new house.
Then, cautiously, and perhaps with a note of concern, “How much did you pay for that?”
We had paid a couple hundred dollars for it at a second-hand antique market in Atlanta. Lest that seem outrageous, I promptly directed him to the Restoration Hardware website where he could see for himself that the same old-school factory transportation was being billed as the perfect centerpiece for that rustic, contemporary look. And it was going for no less than a couple thousand dollars.
Dad couldn’t help himself. He bent down to see how the old wheels rolled on this model, to which I promptly interjected, “Dad, the coffee will spill!”
“My gosh…” he muttered, surely stunned that a product built to hold hundreds of pounds and remain in regular motion had found an entirely new purpose where it held the weight of nothing over two pounds and absolutely, positively never moved.
Who saw that coming?!
Who saw platform carts-to-coffee tables?
Who saw cardboard rectangles with baseball players on them and perfect for decorating your bike spokes one day selling for thousands and sometimes millions of dollars?
Who saw records becoming all-the-rage in the digital age?
Who saw_________________ (fill in the blank with any number of things that comprise our reality both yesterday and today)?
And that’s the point.
Even with all of our life experience, our many metrics and all the rest, it’s really quite stunning the amount we do not see coming and only in retrospect can we make (some) sense of it.
So, the next time we find ourselves absolutely certain…
That a platform cart was built for transporting and rolling things!
Or that this. Is. The. Way. Of. Things!
Or that this is way we Should. And. Must. Go!
Maybe.
And truly, maybe not.
Or maybe ‘yes and no.’
A colleague of mine recently put a nice spin on this sentiment when he said, “Maybe it’s not so much that we need our questions answered as it is that we need our answers questioned.”
Conviction surely matters. Even so, I can’t help but think that perhaps the chief virtue most needed in all of our resolutions, debates, and convictions is good ol’ fashion humility.
In fact, if the critique of our time is that things are Heavy and things are Stuck…could it be that humility is the unheralded platform cart needed for our age (and every age)? Could it be that a humbleness of spirit is the singular thing that can move impossible loads forward?
Because the thing about humility is that it engenders trust.
And as any relationship or nation that has known the gift of trust can attest - you can roll through anything if you have it.
Perhaps it is the reason Jesus himself banked his entire ministry on this singular virtue.1
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We owned the antique market platform cart for six years, and around it we had dozens of wonderful conversations with friends and family alike. It had a way of bringing together not only the look of the room, but the sentiment too. Unconsciously, I think people were drawn to the idea that there was something un-flashy, strong, and tested at the center of our time together.
He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage. - Mark 10:45 (Message Translation)
And…
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!
Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything. - Philippians 2:5-9 (Message Translation)
Beautiful- I think you are on something here. I’d never thought of humility engendering trust. It grounds me to grasp that the One who had every reason not to be humble was filled with humility
I really enjoy your writing. Taking the simplest of objects and transforming them into life’s lessons.
Keep on writing!