After I got married, I worked briefly at company that sold custom wood ceilings. I remember one time there were two orders for similar looking products. One was a walnut ceiling, and the other was a poplar ceiling stained to look like walnut. 

The first client was an Ivy League school. I think it was Princeton or Cornell. Either way it was one of those colleges has been established longer than the US has even been a country. I could just imagine it going into a library that smelled of old books and comfy leather arm chairs with the light from cathedral windows seeping into the heavy, solid wood.

The other ceiling was ordered by a savings and loan that was brand new. They wanted to have the look of dark academia without the price. Poplar was only $5 a linear foot while walnut cost $25. Why is walnut so expensive? Walnut takes five times as long to grow, and the wood is naturally full of rich tannins, so you didn’t even have to stain it. You just cut it, polish it and put a little oil on it and it will gleam for a hundred years.

Poplar wood on the other hand is white, pink or green and very soft. It’s not good for furniture or floors because it scratches easily and doesn’t hold up. Think IKEA versus Ethan Allan. That ceiling was going into a loan office, lit by florescent lights and washed in the odor of cheap cologne and desperation.

Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning when I was reading about one of our leaders quoting a Tarantino movie thinking it was from the Bible. For some, Christianity is only as deep as a stain on cheap wood. For others, it is formed, layer by layer, year after year, tested by the seasons.  Some faith has the strength to support more than itself and last decades, while others, splinters under the pressure of public whim. 

I always look up.