Irons in the fire

New experiences and pursuits in life often teach us the lessons we need to learn, if we take the time to look deeper into them. I’ve learned to see life from the perspective of a student, a teacher, a follower, a leader, a warrior, a scholar, a hunter, a fishermen, a carpenter and a gardener, to name only a few. I’ve never been an artist until I took up blacksmithing a few years ago. Blacksmithing has also given me a perspective on life I’ve never had before, the perspective of a creator.

I see junkyards completely differently now. I now know there is no such thing as junk. There are only discarded things that the right eyes haven’t seen yet. You see, when you look at something with the ‘right eyes’, you see it for what it can become. A scrap of steel is no longer just a scrap of steel. With the right heat and pressure it can become almost anything. It could become a tool under the right hand, or perhaps kitchen utensil or a piece of architectural hardware. Perhaps it could become a work of art. You have to first see it with the right eyes… Next you have to apply heat to transform it into a malleable material. Then you apply your will between an anvil and a hammer. The rest is up to your imagination!

Blacksmithing is unique among the arts in one respect. You make your own tools. In most arts you use tools someone else has made to create your vision. In blacksmithing you often envision creating something that can only be made with a certain tool…so you create the tool first. That reminds me of a short story by Hermann Hesse I read once. In the story, a young man had a conversation with a priest about soldiers and war. The priest told him that, like a carpenter, God uses some as hammers, others God grooms and corrects as His servants. Like the blacksmith, God makes His tools out of the same materials and uses them to create His art.

It is little wonder to me that blacksmiths were once revered. They were the alchemists that commanded the forces of earth and water, air and fire. Without them civilization, as we know it, would not exist. Iron and steel, like everything else we know, was created in the stars. There is something romantic about that. To know that the fundamental building blocks that make up…me…were created in the same processes makes me feel connected to creation in an intimate way. To be able to manipulate iron and steel with air and fire and water makes me feel connected to The Creator. When I create a work of art out of steel, I put a part of myself into it. When I look at it…I am reminded of that that part of me that it represents. I can’t help but wonder if God sees us in that way somehow.

I once saw life as a warrior. I saw in it the opportunity to bring glory to myself…by destroying. That’s what a fighter does, he dreams of destroying for his own glory. In some ways it is ironic that martial arts, created to kill the ego, first inflate it. But like the line in the movie, “Enter the Dragon” wherein the bad guy says of martial artists…”we forge ourselves in the fires of our own wills”…martial arts too, ultimately transform the practitioner…IF the practitioner takes the time to look deeper into the art. As a blacksmith I dream of creating, not just for my own glory, but to bring glory to my creation. That too tells me something about my Creator.

In Blacksmithing when you want to weld two separate pieces together, you have to heat them both up until the area where they are to join becomes malleable. Then you apply flux on the area and lightly hit the two sides together before applying force. Then you make the line that distinguishes them as separate pieces disappear, and they become one. Surely there is a life lesson in that!

I’ve only begun to learn the lessons blacksmithing has to teach me. I’ve found a new passion in the forge. I want to plumb it's secrets and learn its lessons. I’ve certainly felt the heat and the blows of the hammer in my own life. Perhaps I can come to understand something more about my Creator and about myself if I look deeper. Only time and the forge will reveal those secrets...

Back to the anvil!