We just got back from a 3 day trip to Southeastern Indiana, hiking in the Hoosier National Forest.
It's a beautifully hilled area with a perfect blend of old growth and young saplings.
It is walking stick heaven if you are into making walking sticks.
I am.
I am so addicted that every time I head into this part of the country, I find myself lusting over trees with the 'just right' bend or notch or branch.
I literally can't see the forest for all the trees of walking sticks I see in every sapling.
It's really probably pretty disturbed if I step back and look at it.
I wonder also as I step back and look at it though, if there might be others like me, because I am realizing it's not really about walking sticks.
For me, a walking stick is an expression of self.
I could never carry trekking poles or some aluminum staff when I hike in the woods.
Although those make far more practical sense since they are lighter and can be used for tent pitching for ultra light hiking, I find them bland and manufactured and personality-less.
I need a stick that has a part of me in it, where I can express myself.
For me it is far more about self discovery than it is about practical need.
Sure, you can use any stick along the ground to help you cross a river or stretch out to a friend who is dangling off a cliff a thousand feet over a canyon (not that this scenario has ever happened, honest.
I just always add it to the list of reasons to have a walking stick with me at all times.
) For me, a walking stick is symbolic.
Moses carried a staff and it turned into a snake and it parted water and it cracked rocks open and made water come out.
David carried a staff when he went out to meet Goliath (yes, it really says that).
The 70 disciples were instructed to take a staff with them when they were sent out.
There is a strong chance that Jesus carried one.
The 23rd Psalm has comforted the hearts of readers for centuries with the rod and the staff.
So why wouldn't I want to be in their company? It's Biblical! The wood I choose matters first and foremost when I start a new walking stick.
Because what a stick is made of determines how good of a staff it will be.
It reminds me that it's the stuff we are made of that matters more than what we have accomplished.
I have tried all kinds of wood for walking sticks.
I have found some great white wood sticks - Maple, Oak, Ash - but they are, well, boring.
I want something with some color to it, especially if it has a rich heartwood with a white sapwood outer.
Osage Orange has a deep orange heartwood; Walnut or Hickory both have a brown center and make beautiful walking sticks.
It's funny that people are like that to.
Some just don't have much character on the inside - they are pretty much just boringly the same throughout.
No character, no color, no reflection of an interactive Creator.
The second thing I like about walking sticks is the carving.
For years I carved with a pocket knife that had a little saw in it.
It was cool.
Then a friend brought a little carving set with him on a hiking trip that had chisels and gouges in it, and I just had to have one.
Carving went to a whole new level when I discovered gouges that could hollow things out.
That was really cool.
Now in my lazy old age I find a good Dremel tool saves a lot of blisters.
I am a little ashamed that I don't do it the old fashioned way, but not so much so that I won't use the thing.
The price of old age I guess.
I actually do have a point to all this.
For me, a walking stick is a part of me put into wood.
It's something I change, touch, affect.
It proves I matter and exist and can do something to impact my world.
The walking stick becomes a reflection of who I want to be, a representation of my own struggle with finding my uniqueness.
When nothing else goes right in life, when the people I work with don't grow or change, when the things I work at all day don't show any improvement, I can see that I am still impactful when I look at the way I have changed an ordinary stick into a work of art.
Don't get me wrong - I'm no artist.
But it's mine.
It's me.
It's the place my hand, my life, my heart has touched the world.
My walking stick also reminds me of all the miles I have hiked, both on and off the trail.
Each time we stop to camp, I carve a little, and more of me goes into the stick.
Sure, it's just a stick I found in the woods, but it is profoundly valuable to me, because I chose it apart from others and poured myself into it.
The stick shows off me as the carver.
I use the stick to cross streams without missing a stride, or to cross rivers without getting dunked.
I use it to pull me up a steep mountainside, or to slow me down when I am careening down a hill too fast.
It helps me to maintain balance when I am wobbling under too much weight, and it gives me a place to lean when I am pushed beyond limits.
The stick becomes me - a part of me, my best backpacking friend.
But it also 'becomes' me in a deeper sense in that it makes me better than I am.
I am noticing a lot of parallels in the whole walking stick thing.
I realize that I am the walking stick.
I am a piece of wood in the hand of an awesome God who is continually carving me into the best of me.
He selects me out of all the others and uniquely walks with me.
I exist for His glory.
He shapes me with every campsite.
He changes me with every lesson.
The more we walk together, the more I fit into His hand.
I become, ultimately, an expression of the Grand Carver who takes a dumb old stick and brings the heart wood out and makes something beautiful, blending the outside and the inside woods to display a working together that transcends what anyone else ever saw in a simple sapling.
And we become the best of friends, me and God.
Something inside of me thinks that maybe that is what life is really all about; being a simple stick in the hands of a mighty God.
An Indiana walking stick, made extraordinary by God carving it into something more.
It's a beautifully hilled area with a perfect blend of old growth and young saplings.
It is walking stick heaven if you are into making walking sticks.
I am.
I am so addicted that every time I head into this part of the country, I find myself lusting over trees with the 'just right' bend or notch or branch.
I literally can't see the forest for all the trees of walking sticks I see in every sapling.
It's really probably pretty disturbed if I step back and look at it.
I wonder also as I step back and look at it though, if there might be others like me, because I am realizing it's not really about walking sticks.
For me, a walking stick is an expression of self.
I could never carry trekking poles or some aluminum staff when I hike in the woods.
Although those make far more practical sense since they are lighter and can be used for tent pitching for ultra light hiking, I find them bland and manufactured and personality-less.
I need a stick that has a part of me in it, where I can express myself.
For me it is far more about self discovery than it is about practical need.
Sure, you can use any stick along the ground to help you cross a river or stretch out to a friend who is dangling off a cliff a thousand feet over a canyon (not that this scenario has ever happened, honest.
I just always add it to the list of reasons to have a walking stick with me at all times.
) For me, a walking stick is symbolic.
Moses carried a staff and it turned into a snake and it parted water and it cracked rocks open and made water come out.
David carried a staff when he went out to meet Goliath (yes, it really says that).
The 70 disciples were instructed to take a staff with them when they were sent out.
There is a strong chance that Jesus carried one.
The 23rd Psalm has comforted the hearts of readers for centuries with the rod and the staff.
So why wouldn't I want to be in their company? It's Biblical! The wood I choose matters first and foremost when I start a new walking stick.
Because what a stick is made of determines how good of a staff it will be.
It reminds me that it's the stuff we are made of that matters more than what we have accomplished.
I have tried all kinds of wood for walking sticks.
I have found some great white wood sticks - Maple, Oak, Ash - but they are, well, boring.
I want something with some color to it, especially if it has a rich heartwood with a white sapwood outer.
Osage Orange has a deep orange heartwood; Walnut or Hickory both have a brown center and make beautiful walking sticks.
It's funny that people are like that to.
Some just don't have much character on the inside - they are pretty much just boringly the same throughout.
No character, no color, no reflection of an interactive Creator.
The second thing I like about walking sticks is the carving.
For years I carved with a pocket knife that had a little saw in it.
It was cool.
Then a friend brought a little carving set with him on a hiking trip that had chisels and gouges in it, and I just had to have one.
Carving went to a whole new level when I discovered gouges that could hollow things out.
That was really cool.
Now in my lazy old age I find a good Dremel tool saves a lot of blisters.
I am a little ashamed that I don't do it the old fashioned way, but not so much so that I won't use the thing.
The price of old age I guess.
I actually do have a point to all this.
For me, a walking stick is a part of me put into wood.
It's something I change, touch, affect.
It proves I matter and exist and can do something to impact my world.
The walking stick becomes a reflection of who I want to be, a representation of my own struggle with finding my uniqueness.
When nothing else goes right in life, when the people I work with don't grow or change, when the things I work at all day don't show any improvement, I can see that I am still impactful when I look at the way I have changed an ordinary stick into a work of art.
Don't get me wrong - I'm no artist.
But it's mine.
It's me.
It's the place my hand, my life, my heart has touched the world.
My walking stick also reminds me of all the miles I have hiked, both on and off the trail.
Each time we stop to camp, I carve a little, and more of me goes into the stick.
Sure, it's just a stick I found in the woods, but it is profoundly valuable to me, because I chose it apart from others and poured myself into it.
The stick shows off me as the carver.
I use the stick to cross streams without missing a stride, or to cross rivers without getting dunked.
I use it to pull me up a steep mountainside, or to slow me down when I am careening down a hill too fast.
It helps me to maintain balance when I am wobbling under too much weight, and it gives me a place to lean when I am pushed beyond limits.
The stick becomes me - a part of me, my best backpacking friend.
But it also 'becomes' me in a deeper sense in that it makes me better than I am.
I am noticing a lot of parallels in the whole walking stick thing.
I realize that I am the walking stick.
I am a piece of wood in the hand of an awesome God who is continually carving me into the best of me.
He selects me out of all the others and uniquely walks with me.
I exist for His glory.
He shapes me with every campsite.
He changes me with every lesson.
The more we walk together, the more I fit into His hand.
I become, ultimately, an expression of the Grand Carver who takes a dumb old stick and brings the heart wood out and makes something beautiful, blending the outside and the inside woods to display a working together that transcends what anyone else ever saw in a simple sapling.
And we become the best of friends, me and God.
Something inside of me thinks that maybe that is what life is really all about; being a simple stick in the hands of a mighty God.
An Indiana walking stick, made extraordinary by God carving it into something more.
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