BLACK MOUNTAIN — As a woodworker and a Catholic, Michael Warnock has a strong devotion to St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus who was also a carpenter.
The bond was so strong that he inscribed the workbench he built from ash wood and uses for his fine detailing with the words, “My friend St. Joseph pray for me.”
That bench, along with almost all of his tools, materials and commissions in progress, was swept away when floodwaters from the French Broad River poured through his studio in Asheville’s River Arts District during Tropical Storm Helene.
Warnock, like many of the more than 300 artists who used the district as a home for their creations, returned to find devastation – mud and debris where once there had been paintings, sculptures, metalwork and hand-crafted household items like the custom kitchen furniture that is his specialty.
But when he returned, his sadness at the loss also came with a quest.
“Our landlord had contacted all of us to tell us that everything was destroyed and the whole shop was gone,” he said. “But he also told me that some people were saying they had found a random workbench downriver on a rubble pile, and it was inscribed, ‘My friend St. Joseph pray for me.’”
He knew that had to be his bench.
Warnock, a father of seven (two of whom are foster children), got into his truck with two of his older sons and made the drive to Asheville to see if they could locate the bench.
“We got as close as we could, driving over railroad tracks and you could hear natural gas lines spewing,” Warnock said. “We found it about a third of a mile from the district, and it was encouraging because it was pretty much unscathed. It was a miracle.”
There was only one problem – the bench, which weighs about 500 pounds, was perched on a debris pile about a quarter mile away from where Warnock was able to park. There was no way he and his sons would be able to move it without help.
More miraculous moments
He made his way back to his ruined shop and was surveying the damage in sadness when he met two men who were standing nearby. Their names were Keith and Hudson, and they had both worked at Pleb Urban Winery, another Arts District business torn down to its slab foundation by the floodwaters.
“These were big men – I’m 6-foot-4 and they both were taller than me,” he said. “We started talking and I told them I was looking for my stuff. They found out I was a woodworker and asked me if I had seen the workbench with the words about St. Joseph on it.”
Warnock told the men the bench was his, and one of them said, “Maybe there is a God.”
The men went with Warnock and his two sons to retrieve the bench and got it into his pickup truck.
After that small miracle, it was back to the devastated shop to take stock of what was left.
And there was another sign of Warnock’s faith.
“The river went running through my shop – the walls burst open and most everything was wiped right off the walls, but there was my blessed crucifix,” he said.
The humble crucifix was one of many that Warnock got several years ago to repair. After he restored it, he had it blessed by a priest and hung it on the shop wall.
“It was hanging only with a tiny finishing nail and a piece of wire, but there it was after the flood,” Warnock said.
The work of restoration
Now, that crucifix and the workbench are two spiritual symbols that help guide Warnock through the struggles he faces.
His home in the Montreat area was heavily damaged and he is working to repair it while his family lives on the campus of the Black Mountain Home for Children, where he and wife Jerri used to work as house parents for more than 10 years.
For now, Warnock’s main goal is to get his home repaired so it is livable and find another space in western North Carolina where he can practice his craft. It’s a serious challenge for displaced artists, because buildings available for studio space are in short supply.
In the meantime, he is spending time with his family and trying to focus on prayer when possible. He attends Mass at his home parish, St. Margaret Mary in Swannanoa, and sometimes goes to the church just for the quiet.
“I’ll admit prayer has been difficult for me because I’m very distracted,” he said. “My mind is racing.”
He is finding his primary spiritual encouragement in a classic Catholic work, “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas à Kempis.
“He wrote on the royal road of the Holy Cross, and that has been my primary encouragement,” Warnock said. “He died for you on the Cross so that you might also carry your cross and desire to die on the Cross with Him.”
When the house is fixed, he will seek out a new shop where he will place the bench dedicated to St. Joseph and that flood-damaged crucifix.
“A lot of people are surprised that the crucifix survived, and they ask me why I don’t clean it off,” he said. “I’m not going to. I want the scars of the flood and the mud on it.”
— Christina Lee Knauss