Chai Brady
A paper birch cross. The wood was sourced from the grounds of the old Poor Clare Convent in Belfast. A productive lockdown leads a Belfast man to carving crosses for Christians, writes Chai Brady
Although the start of Jim Deeds’ wood carving journey had a few hiccups – his dog ate one of the first crosses he made – he’s now receiving orders across Ireland and as far away as Malta and the US.
Wood carving
Mr Deeds never had a history in wood carving but says it could be in his blood as his grandfather was a master carpenter. Speaking to The Irish Catholic he says: “It’s so surprising because it’s never been part of my plan and yet particularly since the lockdown it really has taken legs in a different way, I’m just going along for the journey.”
However, he turned the wood carving into a prayerful activity that helped him through the lockdown”
It was during the lockdown that he began to amass more tools and became a “wood geek” after his normal job as a pastoral worker, both freelance and for the Diocese of Down and Connor, was majorly impacted due to Covid-19.
“Two things happened, first thing my freelance work disappeared, all my freelance work is about bringing people together in a room and I would be big into discernment, so I would lead groups in communal discernment about their mission or strategic plans, so that disappeared. So a third of my work just stopped and then I also work for the diocese and I was furloughed from that so I found myself with a lot of time,” Mr Deeds explains.
Prayerful activity
However, he turned the wood carving into a prayerful activity that helped him through the lockdown. He says: “It’s so good for my mental health, it slows me down, it keeps me in the moment. I have chosen to make it a contemplative prayer activity. I love to know who I am making the cross for because I can hold them in my prayers and my thoughts.
“It would give me great consolation to know that wherever my cross goes it went into the right hands, and often people would come back to me and say there’s just something in the shape of that wood or there’s something in the grain structure of the wood that really spoke to them at a time when they needed.”
In terms of my own personal faith, what I found really hard was not receiving the Eucharist”
His first project was a cross for his mom which he decided to make one sunny Saturday afternoon when his family were out.
“I found a piece of skirting board of all things and I made this cross and my mom still has it, God love her, she puts it on, it’s on the windowsill of her living room. It’s the most rudimentary looking mess, it was awful but I gave it my best. That was the first one,” he recollects.
“And then I thought, well sure, I’m made one there, I’ll make a wee cross for wearing around my neck and I’ll get one of my friends to bless it. So I did that and then my dog ate it, my dog Charlie. I was getting changed up the stairs and he came into the bedroom and ate my cross, blessed and all by the hands of a holy priest. He’s a rascal.”
But it was a real ache to be outside the door and not able to receive the Eucharist”
Despite that setback he “started to get into it” and now “really enjoys it” and was soon making crosses for his friends and then others started contacting him about the crosses. Mr Deeds says that some people ask him if he does other carvings, which he has but admits he’s not really interested in making secular designs.
He makes crosses people can wear, holding crosses and then some bigger ones that can be about five inches with some of the wood he uses being salvaged; offcuts from furniture makers.
Solace and peace
While his new pursuit has given him some solace and peace over the lockdown and afterwards, Mr Deeds still found it very difficult not to attend public worship.
He says: “In terms of my own personal faith, what I found really hard was not receiving the Eucharist. I’m a great devotee of Lough Derg, I do a bit of work for Lough Derg on and off, I’m really privileged in that I can visit the island a lot. I was one of four people who did Lough Derg during lockdown, it closed so Msgr La Flynn and myself and two other men did Lough Derg so that there would be bare feet on the island, as it would have been the first time in 1500 years that nobody did it.”
He used to go to his local parish church and in the style of Lough Derg walk around the church saying the Rosary, he says, “but it was a real ache to be outside the door and not able to receive the Eucharist. Like everybody else I began to access spirituality in a different way”.
Between his prayer and worship routines and wood carving Mr Deeds certainly had a productive lockdown, and with growing interest in his crosses around the world, the new year seems pregnant with possibility.