The Tao of Firewood

I hurt my thumb yesterday when I was splitting firewood with an unfamiliar six pound wood-splitting maul. I’m still trying to get the accuracy thing down. The maul glanced off the edge of the log and flew out to the side, twisting my thumb in the process.

I bought the splitting maul for my wife for Christmas. She loved it of course, but since she never splits firewood, she lets me use it. “I’m touched,” she said, “but God wants you to have this.” That was so sweet. And the maul is a real beauty too.

By the way, the splitting wedge shown above is NOT what I got my wife. Hers looks like a "fat axe" with a handle. I just wanted to show you what a very cool and kickbutt (though inhumane and uncaring), log splitter looks like.

My wife's gift, with it’s relatively lighter head and fiberglass handle, it’s far superior to the 10-pounder I had been using. The reason is because velocity produces much more force than mass does, and this lighter maul can be swung a lot faster (at the sacrifice of accuracy I found out). My smarter brother John, the physicist, is where I go for all my angular momentum needs. “Grasshopper,” he explained, “energy is proportional to the square of velocity, but is only directly proportional to mass.”

This is one time when less really is more. (It's artistically incorrect to say, but usually more is more. By a long shot.)

What my smarter brother meant is that you want the head of the maul to be going as fast as possible when it hits the wood, and although Goliath could have done serious damage with a 10 pound splitting maul, he could have cleaned up Dodge with a six-pounder.

So now I have ice on my thumb, and some time to contemplate the splitting of firewood.

Very few logs will split on the first whack. In fact usually the maul bounces off at first. I call a new log “laughing oak” because it seems to be mocking me. Sometimes the wood just wants to test me, to see if I am worthy to cut it. After all, it has lived 75 or 100 years and has seen a great deal more hardship and change than I have. As I look at the rings on the cross-section, some them are so close together as to almost be on top of each other. Those are the rings denoting scant growth – from years of no rain, or long and bitter winters. Several tight rings together can indicate a prolonged dry spell.

Running my fingers over the rings, I ask the section of trunk to tell me its story. It wants to tell everything.

But it wants to ask everything as well.

If it's going to be used it wants to be used well (and who doesn't?); it wants to be burned for warmth by people and families worthy of its sacrifice. If my intent is selfish, and my heart filled with darkness, then the wood is sad. But even grateful, contented wood doesn’t let the axe in easily. “You may feel free to split me,” it says, “but you must work hard for it, breathe heavy and sweat if you want to earn me. And finally, when you burn me, you must have a character that loves all humankind.”

That last one is the hard part.

Larry Moffitt
Editor, www.ReligionAndSpirituality.com