A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece

Inspired by Bishop Robert Barron’s acclaimed Letter to a Suffering Church, the Editor of Beyond These Stone Walls was moved to write and publish this inspired reply.

April 10, 2024 by Dilia E. Rodríguez, PhD with an Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae

Introduction

I will always owe a debt of gratitude to Suzanne Sadler of Australia. After following the sordid story that entangled many Catholic priests in false witness, Suzanne came upon an article I was invited to write for Catalyst, the Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The article, which appeared in the July, 2009 issue of Catalyst, was “Due Process for Accused Priests.”

Immediately upon reading it, Suzanne wrote to me from Australia with a suggestion that I permit her to establish a blog that would feature my writing. I was highly dubious, believing that I had nothing of interest or value that anyone would want to read. It was Pornchai Max Moontri, my friend and roommate of many years in prison who encouraged me to try. He reminded me of a letter from Cardinal Avery Dulles urging me to add a new chapter to the literature of Christians wrongly imprisoned. It was also Max who suggested this blog’s first title, “These Stone Walls.” Then Pornchai’s Godmother, Charlene C. Duline, a retired U.S. State Department official jumped aboard with an offer to help with logistics. I ran out of excuses, and in August of 2009 These Stone Walls was born with my first of hundreds of posts “St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Man in the Mirror.”

Over the course of the next nine years, These Stone Walls published some 500 original posts written mostly by me but some by far more distinguished guest writers. Then, in 2019, Covid struck and grew into a global pandemic affecting every tenet of our lives, including our lives of faith. Much that we had come to cherish began to desintegrate before our eyes. In the course of a single week in 2020, my voice in this wilderness of prison and false witness was silenced. These Stone Walls had collapsed.

Then, seemingly from out of the blue came a letter from Dilia E. Rodríguez in New York. She wrote that she was so enamored by a post she stumbled upon about Pope Benedict XVI and Saint Joseph that she felt compelled to read more. Just before my blog was taken offline she downloaded its entire contents onto her own computer.

So the end that I thought was upon us turned out not to be an end at all, but a new beginning. It was in September 2020 that this news came to me. It was just as my longtime friend Pornchai Max Moontri was departing for deportation to Thailand. Just as I was immersed in loss and sadness, Dilia was quietly in the background resurrecting this blog with new life and a new name, “Beyond These Stone Walls.” Dilia has now been our Editor for going on four years.

As we faced the terminal illness of Claire Dion, the subject of my Divine Mercy post last week, Dilia accepted the necessity of stepping out of the shadows and into the light to also take over all that Claire had managed.

Dilia E. Rodriguez, PhD retired in 2022 from a career in U.S. Government service as a civilian scientist for the United States Air Force. Holding advanced degrees in both Physics and Computer Science, Dilia is also a daily communicant and a strong supporter and participant in Eucharistic Adoration. In recent weeks she has also stepped up to take on the logistics of support services for me and this blog as described at our Contact and Support Page.

To mark this occasion and further introduce Dilia, I want to restore and repost something she had written on the Feast of the Holy Innocents in December 2019. Her post is a brilliant response to a small book by Bishop Robert Barron entitled, “Letter to a Suffering Church.”

Here is Dilia E. Rodriguez with

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A Mirror Image in the Devil’s Masterpiece

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and to me it offers symbols for the crisis in the Church.

First, let me say that, as so many others, I am moved by the impassioned efforts of Bishop Robert Barron to stop Catholics from leaving the Church. His heart and soul are on fire with the love of Jesus, of His Church and of His People.

I never thought of leaving, and it is not just “to whom shall we go?” It is that God is LOVE, and as one saint, whose name I cannot recall, said, “LOVE is not loved.” I see the current scandal as stark evidence that LOVE is not loved. So my reaction is that I want to love God, I want to love Jesus with my whole being, as I have never loved Him before.

I want to consider (… think aloud … pray aloud …) three points: the devil’s masterpiece, evangelization at this time, and the call for saints.

Bishop Barron convincingly describes the sexual abuse scandal as exquisitely designed by the devil. He shows the horror that attends the sexual abuse of young people by priests, and the cover-up of these abuses by bishops. Whether or not it is seen as the devil’s masterpiece, this is what is described almost universally as the entirety of the sexual abuse scandal, by the mainstream media, by the Catholic media, by attorneys general and others.

But there is more to the devil’s masterpiece. There is a mirror image that remains invisible to most. The Father of Lies surely can use lies in this masterpiece of masterpieces. In this mirror image the accused priests are innocent, and the ones who claim to have been abused are the abusers. In this mirror image bishops abuse innocent priests by publishing their names in lists of “credibly” accused. This requires no corroboration or evidence of the accusation. It replaces “innocent until proven guilty” with “guilty until proven innocent” or even “guilty even if proven innocent.” This “credible” accusation standard is neither a legal nor a biblical standard.

So two abuses coexist: the visible one, the sexual abuse of young people by priests; and the invisible one, the abuse of innocent priests by those who falsely claim to have been abused and profit from it.

In the accused innocent priests Jesus is living His Passion. Pilate said, “I find no guilt in him.” There is no evidence against many of the accused priests. Jesus stood wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. The chief priests and the guards cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate tried to release him, but the crowd insisted, “Crucify him!” Bishops may want to do the right thing, but they cave in to the pressure and they crucify innocent priests; they remove them from the ministry to which God called them. Bishops cave in to the pressure of those who ask cynically “What is truth?”, and do not listen to the One Who is TRUTH.

Holy Innocents: Double Symbol for the Crisis

The massacre of the holy innocents captures in symbol the two coexisting abuses. Herod’s killing of the innocent children represents the killing of innocent faith of the young who have been abused by priests. The way of Herod — to kill the many to ensure killing the One — is the way that has been adopted to assuage the anger and fears of the crowd and the media. So Herod’s killing of the innocent children also represents the destruction of the lives of innocent priests without having to prove any claim against them. Both are very grievous abuses.

A mirror adds much light where there is light. The mirror-image abuse deceptively intensifies the dark evil of the abusive priests.

What can I do, … we do, … the bishops do, in response to the devil’s masterpiece of masterpieces? Absolutely nothing. Jesus said it, “Without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) But He said, “Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit.” Only Jesus can respond to the devil’s masterpiece of masterpieces.

This time of great scandal is the Olympics of Evangelization. The Gospel is not just for intellectual discussions or for run-of-the-mill problems. It is only the full power of the Gospel that can cope with the immensity of this scandal.

The response of Jesus cannot be implemented by the weekend Catholic “athletes.” After a recent EWTN / Real Clear poll, Professor Robert George of Princeton University noted: “So even if you take the most devout Catholics — those who believe all of what the Church teaches or most of what the Church teaches — only 66% of those believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.” Clearly, an overwhelming majority of the laity can in no way be part of the response of Jesus. They are way out of shape.

The response of Jesus is the response of His Olympic team, the living saints, whom Bishop Barron and Benedict XVI point out as the great evangelizers; those who remain in Him, and He in them.

God is LOVE. Jesus said, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.” In the mystery of Jesus, LOVE, TRUTH, and LIFE are synonyms. There can be no love without truth. There can be no life without love. Only Jesus can love both the abused and the abuser. Only Jesus can restore their lives. Only Jesus, the WAY, can reject the way of Herod. Only Jesus … through those who remain in Him and He in them.

Bishop Barron wrote (p. 97): “Above all, we need saints, marked by holiness of course, but also by intelligence, an understanding of the culture, and the willingness to try something new.”

Under “intelligence” and “understanding of the culture” should come a realization that the moral relativism of this age, the pervasive misinformation in the news (e.g. huge pro-life marches become invisible), the readiness to attack the Church, etc., do not foster an accurate portrayal of the scandal in the Church.

Conditioned by the Media

If in trying to solve a problem, or to understand a phenomenon, we ignore whole classes of facts and observations, we have no possibility of success: we will not solve the problem or understand the phenomenon.

Even though way back I realized that the real abuses of minors by priests could be exploited by others against the Church, I was still conditioned by the media. When the Pennsylvania Attorney General report came out, my knee-jerk reaction was “Here we go again.” But there was almost nothing new in it, and truth and fairness may not necessarily be its hallmark.

Jesus said: “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Matthew 10:16). Saints marked by intelligence and understanding of the culture eagerly and persistently seek the truth in this age that so fiercely rejects it. Their messages and their lives are a bright light in this very dark period. Consider the following examples: “A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused”; Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast; Men of Melchizedek; A Ram in the Thicket; The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights ; Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories.

I began to see the magnitude of the mirror-image scandal when I accidentally discovered the blog “These Stone Walls.” It is the blog, published with the help of some friends, of Father Gordon J. MacRae, a falsely accused priest who has been in prison for 30 years. When the “hour had come,” Jesus prayed to the Father for those the Father had given to Him, “Consecrate them in the truth.” With a plea deal, Father MacRae could have been out of prison after one year. But he is consecrated to the Truth, and did not lie. For that, he got a life sentence.

Of his case Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote: “You may want to pray for Father MacRae, and for a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

The scandal of the Church is a colossal problem. The Dallas Charter of 2002 got some things right, but it also helped create the mirror-image scandal. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote in 2004:

“The church must protect the community from harm, but it must also protect the human rights of each individual who may face an accusation. The supposed good of the totality must not override the rights of individual persons. Some of the measures adopted [at Dallas] went far beyond the protection of children from abuse … [By their actions, the bishops] undermined the morale of their priests and inflicted a serious blow to the credibility of the church as a mirror of justice.”

He also added:

“having been so severely criticized for exercising poor judgment in the past, the bishops apparently wanted to avoid having to make any judgments in these cases.”

If the priesthood is to be renewed, Jesus must be the foundation of this renewal. It must be His Way, His Love, and His Truth that renews the priesthood. The Church cannot be divided. It cannot call for saintly priests, while at the same time depriving some saintly priests of their civil and canonical rights when falsely accused.

Jesus, train me in Your ways. May I not utter empty words, and cry out “Lord, Lord.” May I love all the abused, all the abusers, and as Bishop Barron says, all fellow sinners. You have redeemed me through a Very Great Sacrifice. May I constantly beg You to make me Totally Yours.

Amen.

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Encoded Message from God

I got the idea that I wanted to find in the awful number the prison assigned to Father Gordon a comforting message from God. Maybe somehow the numbers could be mapped to some verse in the Bible. My starting point was to associate with each of the digits in 67546 the letters that phones assign to digits:

6 -> m n o; 7 -> p q r s; 5 -> j k l; 4 -> g h i; 6 -> m n o.

It really didn’t make much sense. I wanted to find some verse whose first word started with m or n or o, and whose second word started with p or r or q or s, and so on. I wasn’t finding such a five-word verse. I have as my desktop background the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. So I asked her for help. After a while I considered my favorite Bible verse:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

— John 15:5

There was no direct connection, but it was possible to see a loose one.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever REMAINs IN ME and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

At first I thought that it would have been better if “Jesus” had been the second word. But then I realized that Jesus being in the middle, at the heart of the prayer, was perfect.

With the help of Our Blessed Mother we can see that in the number the prison system uses to demean Father Gordon, God encoded the prayer he is living, and attests that he is bearing much fruit.

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: I am deeply grateful to Dilia for the ways she has saved my voice in the wilderness from being drowned out in the scandals of this age. I believe the Lord has in fact sent her just in the nick of time.

You may also like these other posts about our quest for Jesus and for justice:

Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write On the Ground?

A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ

St. Michael the Archangel and the Scales of Our Salvation

Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell

Please consult our “Contact and Support” Page for new information on how to support this blog and our cause for justice.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri by Claire Dion

Claire Dion, a contributing writer for Beyond These Stone Walls, interviewed Pornchai “Max” Moontri at the New Hampshire State Prison for a tale of hope and amazing grace.

Preface by Father Gordon MacRae

The following is a guest post by Mrs. Claire Dion, a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls in Bridgton, Maine. Claire graced these pages with a Corporal Work of Mercy that touched our hearts in 2017. After two years with us, our friend, Kewei Chen from Shanghai, China, was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to await his deportation.

After reading of the unique circumstances that brought Chen from China to an American prison, and the pain of our parting as well as our hopes for Chen, Claire drove from her home in Maine to meet with him at the place where he was awaiting deportation. The result of that visit became her first guest post on Beyond These Stone Walls, “My Visit with Kewei Chen in ICE Detention.”

Her post was comforting. From my perspective, and that of Pornchai Moontri who had become Chen’s older brother, the void in our hearts could not be filled, but Claire’s guest post left it not quite so empty. It ended with a wonderful photograph of Chen emailed from the Shanghai airport as he saw his parents for the first time after his unplanned three-year absence.

More recently, Claire asked if she could visit me and Pornchai, a much further winter drive for her. Since prison rules allow for being on the visitor list of only one prisoner, I asked her to visit Pornchai, to treat it as an interview, and to write another guest post for Beyond These Stone Walls.

I did this because, as I have hinted in some previous posts, there is a very special story coming, one that I know will both break your hearts and then mend them again with evidence of the immense power of Divine Mercy to restore the human soul. This story is coming when I am able to fully tell it, and it will be unlike anything you have ever read before on Beyond These Stone Walls.

So as a prelude, I want to present Pornchai “Max” Moontri through the eyes of a reader meeting our friend for the first time. His story should begin, after all, not upon the dung heap of Job where life took him, but at the point to which Divine Mercy has redeemed him out of darkness into a very great light.

Claire Dion is a wife and mother of five adult daughters and a devoted grandmother. She is currently retired from a career as a registered nurse in obstetrics at Lynn, Massachusetts General Hospital. She today lives in Bridgton, Maine where she has been part of the Faith Formation Team at Saint Joseph Parish and a follower of Father Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Morning Glory and Marian Consecration. It’s an honor to present Claire Dion.

Saturday – January 8, 2018 at 8:00 AM

I pulled into the parking lot of the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord. I will be meeting Pornchai Moontri, a man I have come to know and love from reading Beyond These Stone Walls. Walking into the visiting area where I have to sign in, I feel a little uneasy. I did not have a clue what I was to do and I had not slept the night before as I was afraid I would do something wrong and the visit would be canceled.

Everything went well until I passed through a metal detector and the alarms went off. What was I thinking? I should have realized that two knee replacements and a hip replacement might present a problem. After being sent back to the waiting room with alarm bells ringing, some guards questioned me, and then led me into the visiting room. It was a large room with metal tables and chairs screwed to the floor. Each table was numbered, and I was instructed to go to table number twenty-four.

From a distance I saw Pornchai walk into the visiting room. I realized that he had not seen me before, but I recognized him from Beyond These Stone Walls. So I waved and smiled, and he smiled back. When he got to the table, I asked him if I could give him the allowed “three-second hug.” He laughed while I hugged this man whom I had only read about but was very anxious to meet.

While I was waiting for Pornchai to arrive, I wondered how we were going to fill in a two-hour visit. I was not allowed to bring anything with me so I had no notes to help me remember what I wanted to talk to him about and all the questions I had. I knew that Father Gordon wanted me to write about this visit for Beyond These Stone Walls.

We sat next to each other at the table in a room filled with cameras. The large room was also full of visitors, and, as many of them were children visiting their fathers on a Saturday morning, it was noisy. It took only seconds for us to relax and start talking. From the moment we sat down, I had a sense that I already knew this very special person.

We continued to talk nonstop for the entire two hours. We both felt that it was amazing that we were sitting here together, Pornchai from Thailand and me from Lynn, Massachusetts (which, by the way, is the city just North of Boston where Father Gordon grew up).

Soon we were talking about Pornchai’s incredible journey from a village in Northeast Thailand to Bangor, Maine and ending at the New Hampshire State Prison. I learned that Pornchai was abandoned by his mother at age two and that a teenage relative found him and brought him to live with his family.

Nine years later, when Pornchai was age eleven, his mother returned to Thailand. He did not recognize or even remember her, but against Pornchai’s will he was taken from Thailand and brought to America. A series of traumatic events broke his heart and his soul. That is another story that hopefully Father Gordon will be telling soon at Beyond These Stone Walls.

When Pornchai was fourteen years old, he ran away. He became — though not by choice — a homeless child living on the streets for the second time in his young life, and he spoke little English. While still a teen, he was involved in a struggle that resulted in the death of another man, and he was sent to prison.

While listening to his story, my heart ached as I could see and feel his pain over these events from so long ago. Sentenced to 45 years in a Maine prison, Pornchai continued to have outbursts of anger and rage which landed him in solitary confinement for many years in Maine’s “supermax” prison. [Note: PBS Frontline did a gripping story on that very place and time.]

Pornchai told me that his only plan for life was to never leave prison. It sounded as though he knew he was going to die there, and that was what he wanted. It was his “Plan B” for his life. However, God had other plans for Pornchai Moontri. Fourteen years later, he was moved to a prison in New Hampshire for the rest of his sentence, and Father Gordon MacRae stepped into the story of his life.

Here Pornchai’s eyes and expression softened as he spoke about meeting Father Gordon whom he and other prisoners call “G.” At this point, Pornchai said he felt completely alone, still angry and trusting no one. Another prisoner, a young man from Indonesia, introduced him to a man called “G” and said that G helped him a lot and that he trusted G.

Pornchai watched how G in a caring and patient way helped others and how they trusted him. In his life, the very idea of trust was entirely new. Slowly and cautiously, Pornchai let G into his life and a friendship began.

We talked for awhile about G and I learned that no matter what happens in prison G stays calm. He is a humble, steady person in the midst of the constant turmoil and darkness of prison life, and is always available to any prisoner who comes to him. With a chuckle, I have to add here that I remember Chen telling me that G is a very good man “but you don’t bother him when he is typing a BTSW post!”

“When I Was in Prison, You Came to Me” —Matthew 25:36

It was quite awhile before Pornchai found out that G is a Catholic priest. We spoke about how Father Gordon’s strong faith impressed Pornchai even though many in the Church had abandoned him. Pornchai told me that G’s faith shines in prison, and has attracted some of the prisoners to join him at Sunday Mass and in retreats sponsored by Father Michael Gaitley and the Marians of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.

Pornchai also said that Father Gordon constantly reaches out to those he feels he can help, and Pornchai was one of them. It was during this conversation that I asked Pornchai to tell Father Gordon how much I love, respect and honor his priesthood.

Through him, Christ’s presence is being felt there, and it is making a difference for many behind those stone walls and many of us BTSW readers.

As their friendship grew, Father Gordon told Pornchai that he must start taking positive steps with his life. He encouraged Pornchai to leave aside “Plan B” and plan instead for a future.

Pornchai began taking education courses, spending his days in school instead of in a cell. He proudly told me that he earned his high school diploma in prison and was Valedictorian of his 2012 graduating class. I listened and learned that his educational journey was just beginning. With Father G’s help, he then enrolled in courses in social work and psychology at Stratford Career Institute earning academic certificates “with highest honors.” This was followed by studies through a scholarship at Catholic Distance University where he took courses in theology with a straight “A” average.

What Pornchai has accomplished is nothing short of amazing given that he learned English in prison. He and “Father G” encourage other prisoners to become educated, and Pornchai now spends time mentoring and tutoring them, especially in mathematics in which he excels. He also spends his days in the woodworking and Hobby Craft shop where he teaches safety training to other prisoners on the use of carpentry tools and machines.

Pornchai designs and builds handcrafted model ships, beautiful Divine Mercy keepsake boxes, and other creations in wood. Some of these are made as gifts and some are sold in a store near the prison grounds. Pornchai used the proceeds to pay for his education courses. Father Gordon later told me that Pornchai is modest about his great skill in woodworking. One of his ships is on display in Belgium where a curator posted a brass plaque indicating that it was designed and created by “Master Craftsman Pornchai Moontri, Concord, New Hampshire.”

Divine Mercy Conversion

As Pornchai’s friendship with Father Gordon deepened, and Pornchai was influenced by his patient practice of faith, he made a decision to become a Catholic. Seeing in the many comments how much Father Gordon’s posts spiritually affect BTSW readers, we talked about how becoming Catholic has helped Pornchai in prison. He received the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation on April 10, 2010. He chose “Maximilian” as his Christian name to honor St Maximilian Kolbe.

On the next day, he received his First Eucharist from Bishop John McCormack. When this was first being planned, neither Pornchai nor Father Gordon realized the date was Divine Mercy Sunday. On that day, Jesus showered Pornchai with His love and mercy and Pornchai felt it. He said that before he became a Catholic he was always feeling unloved and alone. Now he could feel that God was with him and loved him. He also spoke about his love for the Blessed Mother. As he told me this, there was a sense of peace within him.

When I asked Pornchai what he would like me to tell BTSW readers, he became very serious. He said that he and Father Gordon are deeply impacted by the support they receive and that BTSW could not exist without it. They deeply appreciate the love, prayers, and encouragement they receive from readers all over the world. He kept going back to the BTSW readers and how important they are to both of them. He spoke of how he has done nothing to earn this outpouring of love.

Pornchai spoke about the lawyer who has helped him and Chen so much, Clare Farr in Western Australia, and how she learned of him through BTSW. He spoke of Suzanne Sadler, BTSW’s Australian-based webmaster and publisher. He spoke of Father George David Byers who helps ready Father G’s posts for publishing. He spoke of Mrs. LaVern West who prints and mails him the BTSW comments.

Pornchai also said that Father Gordon corresponds with Father Andrew Pinsent, a scientist at Oxford University who has cited his science writings. I mentioned that Father Gordon’s science posts are over my head and Pornchai said with a smile, “Mine too!” In an astonishing connection that Father Gordon later told me about, Father Georges Lemaître, the priest-physicist considered in science to be “Father of The Big Bang and Modern Cosmology,” was a close family friend of Mr. Pierre Matthews in Belgium who today is Pornchai Moontri’s Godfather.

And Pornchai also spoke of Charlene Duline who helps Father G communicate with readers, and is Pornchai’s Godmother. She once sent him a letter in which she called him “precious,” and then other prisoners teased him about it, but he laughed and said that they are jealous because no one calls them precious.

Suddenly the lights in the room flashed on and off. Our visit was over, but not before we were able to have a photograph taken together. With a hug (three seconds only) we said goodbye. I was truly blessed to meet this amazing young man, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, and to see Father Gordon through his eyes. I know I will visit him again.

On the coldest day of winter, I left the New Hampshire State Prison with summer in my heart.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

I thank Claire Dion for this snapshot into our lives. In my recent post, “The Days of Our Lives,” I wrote that Pornchai Moontri and our friend, J.J. Jennings work together in the woodworking and Hobby Craft center. The photos below are of their latest project, a Jewelry Cabinet.

The design for a cabinet of this size was by J.J. Jennings, who collaborated with Pornchai Moontri for the highly skilled construction. The one on the right was made by J.J. and the one on the left by Pornchai. The woods for both are solid maple and black walnut. The drawer fronts are maple or black walnut with poplar sides and bottoms. The drawers and side cabinetry doors are lined with velour.

These beautiful pieces are 20” high, 14” width, and 8.5” depth, and are customized with wood-burned or painted designs and brass fittings. The top is hinged with a 2.5”-deep display area. Two of the drawers are for rings and the other drawers are deeper. The intricate side cabinets are for hanging jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, and rosaries. Other photos of their work can be seen on the Pinterest Board, “Woodworking and Model Shipbuilding by Pornchai Moontri.”