Vines, people, and walking sticks
It’s a cool, crisp, Saturday morning. The kind of blue-sky, sunny day that makes it a crime to stay indoors.
I decide it’s a good time to take the azalea bushes that flank our house down a notch. As usual at the end of the summer, they are threatening to cover the windows. With the buds that will be next spring’s blossoms already forming, I take a gentle, branch by branch approach to cutting them back to an acceptable height – tall enough so I will see them from the window of my home office, but not so tall as to block the light.
I cannot ignore the vines that have invaded the foliage, so entwined that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It takes care and precision to free the azaleas without harming them.
Another morning I walk with my friend, Carol. We each carry a walking stick. Mine was a gift from Carol years ago, hers is one of many she gives a test walk before passing it on to a new owner.
Carol harvests “curly sticks” – saplings overrun by vines and destined for extinction – from the woods around her home. She allows the wood to dry, then strips the bark, straightens here, enhances a curve there, sands, polishes and cuts to size; creating a useful work of art. For some sticks the beauty is close to the surface. Others require more shaping, sanding and polishing.
No two alike
Carol likes to say God makes them. True, but without her skill and attention, without her eye for its potential, a curly stick remains merely another vine-choked tree hidden in the forest.
And so it often is in our lives. Using natural processes, God creates our raw materials – body, mind and spirit – and plants us in a particular place, time and environment.
Some of us, treated like prize azaleas, are protected, nurtured and pruned, to produce lovely blossoms, a pleasure to behold.
Many, like forest saplings, are left to our own resources, experience the storms of trauma, or land in rugged, rocky terrain. Catching sunshine and rain as it comes, at the mercy of invading vines, our possibilities all but obscured by knobs, burls and twists.
Successful people often recount stories of someone – parent, teacher, counselor, employer, friend – that recognized their potential and empowered them to break free of environmental constraints. Such mentors are a true gift.
Lacking this good fortune, as humans we are still blessed with the ability to choose. We have the freedom to seek out skilled and compassionate helpers to carefully cut away the vines, to support us in the process of becoming. We can learn to let go of outgrown defenses, develop latent strengths, become aware of our worth, embrace our true selves, and allow our singular beauty to emerge.
In the end, the finest walking sticks are those most altered by the elements. And our best lives are realized when we survive adversity and find courage to grow.