I’ve spent a few posts talking about Christianity, and it’s somewhat brought me off topic for this blog. My goal isn’t to create negative thoughts about what not to believe in or what not to do. My goal is to talk a bit about positive things and paint some pictures that might be helpful to someone out there.
I was out camping this weekend with family and friends. There must have been a dozen boys with us and we were doing all the usual camping things, swimming in the lake, hiking, and s’mores. Of course, s’mores. And where’s there’s s’mores, there’s fire, right?
I like to build and tend a fire. I like to build the right kind of fire for a job, and I don’t like people randomly poking a fire I’ve carefully built. With a dozen boys under the age of eight, “random poking” is about as easy to get rid of as mosquitos. I accepted a certain level of “we cannot help but throw things in the fire,” but when this or that boy was likely to start knocking it out of shape, I chased them off.
And so here I was, with this one friend’s son who kept coming over, and he wanted to poke at the fire so badly, and here I am, gently trying to get him to back off from “my fire.” And it hits me. Why were we here again? Why did we even come out into the woods with our children? Why did we drag them away from their warm beds? It was for a lot of reasons, but for one, we wanted to teach them something about the outdoors. We wanted to teach them the things our fathers had taught us. And here I was, taking a boy who desperately wanted to do something with the fire and chasing him off. How will they learn anything if they’re never allowed to touch?
So I stopped and I taught him. I showed him how the fire was made and why I built it the way I had. I showed him how to break up the coals, and when to leave the fire alone and enjoy it. And that’s all he wanted. I let him pick where to put the logs, and he knew exactly what the fire needed. And when the fire wasn’t catching to new wood, he knew where to blow on it to get it blazing again. And even though he wasn’t my son, I was showing him what fathers know, why you listen to fathers.
When we get so wrapped up in our things, when we find ourselves frustrated with others, look for what others really need. Can we help them, and get what we want in the process? We’re all connected, and we can’t properly grow while holding others back and shooing them away. Help them grow, and hang on for the ride.
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July 22, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Steve
Sounds like a wonderful weekend.
I’m not sure I can fully explain why, but I am pretty certain that there is a deep spiritual connection between mankind and fire. Yes, it is a tool, one of the first truly powerful tools that we embraced, but it is more than that. It reaches into our souls. A story told around the fire, is more than just the story. We can sit for hours staring into the fire on a dark night and be entranced. As we are growing up, we have an almost irresistible urge to poke at it. It brings heat and light, but also pain and danger. We want to interact with it, but know that to do so can be perilous. Fire has been used in ritual for as far back as I am aware, be it by candle or bonfire or pyre. Fire has allowed us to build things that were only possible with its help. Even the process making of fire can have deep spiritual significance.
In boy scouts all of us poked at the fire. We learned to respect it, but were always fascinated by it. If the boys and girls know how to be safe about it, there is something really satisfying about finding a long stick, putting it in the fire, watching it burn and just holding the other end. Somehow it provides a visceral physical connection between us and the flame. We poke a bit, we see the sparks and push around the coals. You can’t afford to be careless or disrespectful, but somehow holding a stick in the fire makes a connection.
I think there is a lot to be said for teaching kids how to interact with powerful things. They need to learn safety. They need to learn respect, but they also learn responsibility and feel a sense of empowerment at the opportunity to wield something that can both make and destroy. The same is true of a boy or girl and a pocket knife. You can hurt yourself deeply if you don’t treat it with care, but the sense of capabilities and trust can have a great impact on a child that is ready for it. They become your tools. And you gain a bit of adulthood by proving that you are ready to be entrusted with them. Temptation will always be there to abuse them, but trust and being taught by your parent or elder is a powerful thing that provides balance and growth. And the ritual of giving a child their first pocket knife or light their first fire are ones that when done with reverence with stay with that person their whole life.
July 22, 2008 at 4:50 pm
pantheophany
It’s funny you mention pocket knives. Our oldest is asking for one, and we’re puzzling over how to best teach him to handle it, and when to know that he’s ready to have his own. Suddenly we appreciate the Scouting “badge” system.
July 22, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Steve
You might look up the Whittling Chip badge/card that is how the boy scouts teach it. Giving your son a knife can be a big deal (in either direction, based on whether he is ready). I would say it is a rite of passage of sorts.
If you are interested, here is the boy scouts age/skill recomendations
http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/ageguides.pdf
And the general ages of different scouts: http://www.scouting.org/CubScouts/AboutCubScouts/Boys/scouting.aspx