The Boy Scouts are one of the organizations
responsible for making me what I am today.
I am not sure if they want to admit to that though.
But I give the Boy Scouts a lot of credit, especially for my survivalist skills.
Yes, I have been trained, so that if you dropped me into the wilderness with a book of
matches and a chunk of fishing line, that three days later, all things being equal, I
would emerged unscathed.
Of course, I never had any need or inclination to use those skills.
The closest I come on a regular basis is lighting a charcoal grill without pints and
quarts of lighter fluid. And since I still love to go camping, I am guessing some of
that Scout is still nestled at the core of my existence.
I was trained by an old-school Scout, Mr. Hamilton.
He was a throw back even for his age. Gaunt and grizzled, he was a poster boy
for outdoor living.
Some of the other Scout leaders obviously were a little soft and citified but Mr.
Hamilton, he took no trappings of civilization with him into the wilderness and had
little or no patience with those who did.
I am glad that Mr. Hamilton was put in charge of outdoor training just when I entered the
scouts. He took a handful of us new Scouts and modeled us to be like him. We
even tried to get his swagger down, and to this day I can do a pretty good
imitation.
It is a little like a drill sergeant meeting Rambo.
The thing I am most appreciative to Mr. Hamilton for was his teaching us how to start
fires.
Not of the arson variety, but fires for cooking, warmth and security when you are out in
the woods.
There has been many times in my adult life that I have thought of Mr. Hamilton as I sat at
the edge of a roaring fire, enjoying the crystal clear sky of some isolated area.
Camping really allows you to get close to nature and to see God's creations
unadorned. But the ability to build a good fire is a necessity.
Every weekend, Mr. Hamilton would gather up all his charges and teach us a new outdoor
skill. One week it was navigation by compass. Another week it was
tracking. This particular week, it was fire building. The trick was
though, that in order to earn our Scout badge, we had to light the fire with just three
matches.
Three matches might seem like a lot but think back to how many matches it took you to
light your last grill, and that was with enough lighter fluid to run a car for a block.
Mr. Hamilton was a thorough and methodical teacher. He would take you through every
process step by step, explaining all along the way.
Our fire building day followed a snow storm. It left a foot of snow on the ground.
We thought Mr. Hamilton would cancel that weekend. Instead, he seemed all
the more eager to march his charges out to a secluded area to instill a new skill.
First he had us gather the material for our fire. With all the snow around, we
wondered where we would get dry fuel. He guided us to a stand of fur trees and
then told us to go under them and there would be dry tinder to be found. He was
right. Then he told us to take the bigger damp wood we found back with us.
He took us to a clearing and then told us to prepare to build our fires. We must of
all looked at him like he was crazy. Build a fire in the snow?
He passed out the folding camp shovels. "Shovel down to the ground and then
make sure you have at least a yard of clearance to all sides," He instructed.
Here we were in the middle of the woods shoveling snow.
He then had us build a little structure with the dry material we had. First a small
platform, with just enough room under it for a match to fit. On that platform we
placed wood shavings that we produced from the dry sticks with our whittling knives.
On top of the shavings went smaller dry sticks. As the platform grew,
the so did the size of the wood. The bigger and wetter wood, was placed over the
platform in a pyramid formation.
Then came the moment of truth. We received our three matches. Long, wooden
strike anywhere matches. We all had stones for our strikers. The red and white
head of the match slid across my stone and burst into flame. I careful placed the
flickering match under my little platform.
You could smell the fragrance of burning wood as the wood shavings I had made caught.
They then spread to the smaller twigs above. Now I could feel the heat of my
little fire, as it spread upwards, each new level burning with intensity until the wet top
wood had dried from the heat below and it too began to merrily burn.
Even in a foot of snow, Mr. Hamilton had taught us how to build a fire and get it lit with
only three matches. But the lesson he taught that day went way further than survival
training.
The first thing he taught me, was whenever you had a project to perform under adverse
conditions, clear a little area out between you and the conditions. He had us shovel
the snow back so when the fire started, it would not melt the snow and put itself out.
In life you have to prepare the area around you before you start trying to light a
spiritual fire. Is there anything around, or inside, you that might put the fire
right back out once it starts to flicker? If so you need to shovel it away like that
fire extinguishing snow. If we do not push the world back at arms width, when we are
trying to ignite a little spiritual fire, often times the heat of our revival will draw
the world back in and extinguish the fire we are trying to build.
Even his method of building a fire was a lesson in life.
He did not try to burn the big, wet wood first. Yes it was bigger and was more
appealing. But Mr. Hamilton let us know it would be hard lighting those big logs by
themselves. Being wet they would be hard to light with even a box of matches.
But when put at the end of a line of combustion, not only did the big logs burn, but they
burned bright and warm. You just have to start out little and patiently work your
way up to the big challenges. Each little step is a starting point for a bigger step until
you finally ignite even the biggest challenges before you..
I have used Mr. Hamilton's lessons both in my life, my ministry and of course, in the
woods.
I do not know what happened to this old Boy Scout. Perhaps like old generals, they
just fade away. But it was through his wisdom and patience, that I have spent many a
safe and pleasant night under the stars as an adult.
And perhaps even set a fire or two in the people I have encountered. One little step
at a time. Can you feel the heat?
