JIM Deeds was sitting in his west Belfast back garden two summers ago when he felt one of those taps on the shoulders, those jolts of inspiration, that occasionally come into our lives and won't go away, writes William Scholes.
Rather out of nowhere, he decided he was going to make a wooden cross for his mother.
He describes that first effort as rudimentary. Its successors are anything but, and in the days and months since he estimates that he has made a couple of hundred in a garage workshop that has become rather more 'workshop' than 'garage'.
At first, he made them to give to friends and family. Then people started approaching him and asking him to make them one for themselves or for someone else as a gift.
It is easy to understand why. These are beautiful objects, laden with meaning and significance.
They have gone all over the world. As well as Ireland, Jim's crosses have made their way to Malta and Spain, England, Scotland and Wales. A Methodist minister in Florida wanted 10.
Crafting the crosses is a spiritual act. "It's a form of praying," says Jim, who is well known for his work in pastoral ministry, as well as his writing and broadcasting.
It is also a wonderfully tactile and organic process. The size and shape of a piece of wood dictates the form of the cross it will eventually yield.
It could be one designed to hang on a wall or sit on shelf, or to be worn around the neck.
Or it might become a 'worry cross', small and light, to be clasped in the palm of an anxious hand in need of comfort; its shape offers the reassurance of the risen Christ, whose birth as Immanuel, God with us, is remembered this season.
After the initial cutting, a painstaking - and lengthy - sequence of rasping, sanding and oiling follows.
Jim starts with coarse sandpaper and as the form of each cross reveals itself, it gradually suggests its own finished form, the perfect imperfections of its grain and nature's hand illuminated with the polish of 1,200 grit sandpaper and the careful application of up to 20 coats of oil.
At each stage, careful judgments have to be made. Will more sanding erase the vein of colour running through an almost-finished cross? How many coats of oil are needed to make it really shine?
No two crosses are the same and finished, they glow with the depth and intensity of a diamond.
Jim is very conscious of the fact that each wooden cross is going to be held by an individual, with their own burdens and worries, trials and tribulations.
As he makes the crosses, Jim isn't only in conversation with the wood. He's praying - praying for the person who will eventually hold the finished item, praying for the worries and problems of these days and praying to God in thankfulness.
"It's contemplation in action," he says.
