c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Paul Porter likes to jigsaw for Jesus and carve Scripture with a scroll saw.

Cutting tiny, intricate patterns into blocks of olive wood imported from Bethlehem, he has shaped startling icons reflecting sacred themes. Many of the pieces have been given to clergy, missionaries, the sick and shut-ins.

“I started scroll-sawing five years ago, but I’ve been woodworking all my life,” Porter said. “It just comes naturally to me. I think it’s God’s gift to me.”

Although he makes a living as a truck driver, Porter has carved out a niche as a woodworker on the side.

Porter, 54, lives in Hayden, Ala., about 30 miles north of Birmingham. He said he’s made thousands of wooden crosses, angels and Jesus figures. His primary tool is a scroll saw, which holds vertical blades that can cut tiny details in wood. His primary motive is providing inspiration, he said.

“I want to supply preachers who give them to shut-ins,” Porter said. “That’s my ministry. Maybe it will bring them a little closer to God.”

The Rev. Ron Howard, pastor of Hayden United Methodist Church, said he takes the crosses with him on visitations.

“When I visit people, those pieces are prayed over and given to shut-ins and sick people,” Howard said. “He doesn’t want any glory out of it for himself. He just does it out of his heart.”

Porter also sells items for those wanting to give them as gifts.

The carvings have sold for as little as $1 for a small wooden cross and as much as $325 for a three-foot-tall cross with a base of bloodwood resembling a puddle of blood. That piece was commissioned for a church in Dallas.

Several churches in the Birmingham area display pieces made by Porter.

“It takes a delicate touch and patience,” Porter said. “Some people might find it monotonous. If you cut it wrong, there goes your piece. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist.”

His wife, Melinda Porter, a youth pastor at Hayden United Methodist Church,gets mad at him when he gives up on a project because of a small imperfection.

“I’ve taken whole pieces and thrown them away and she’s dug them out of the trash and said there’s nothing wrong with it,” he said.

His wife also notes that the wood can be expensive and says he needs to sell some of the carvings to make up for his labor and expenses.

“He has spent 10 or 15 hours on a piece and then he will give it away,” she said. “It just doesn’t matter to him. He made three psalteries out of exotic wood and gave them away. He loves seeing people get a blessing.”

Porter has made small replicas of Noah’s ark out of cypress wood for children. He’s cut detailed portraits of Jesus from Bolivian rosewood. But he prefers to work with olive wood from the Holy Land.

Porter buys his olive wood from dealers who sell branches trimmed from olive trees in the Bethlehem area, where Jesus was born.

“He is so fervent about the idea that it could be from a tree that’s descended from a tree that Jesus prayed under,” Melinda Porter said.

He sometimes makes his own designs, or uses scroll-saw patterns for Christmas ornaments.

“If it makes someone feel better or brings them closer to God, I feel I’ve done my job,” Porter said. “When I finish a piece, I feel drained because it’s a part of me.”

He asked a friend who visited Rome in 2004 to hand-deliver a cross made for Pope John Paul II to the Vatican. It was given to one of the pope’s personal secretaries, who promised to deliver it. Porter later received a thank-you note from a bishop.

Porter doesn’t know for sure if the pope received the cross, but he says it was one of his better works.

“The one I gave to the pope, I can say it was perfect,” he said. “I just hope he looked at it.”

(Greg Garrison writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.)

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