Redneck Chainsaw Strikeforce
By Nathan
Article originally published in The Southern Cross, official magazine of the Diocese of Savannah, GA, under the title “Sharpening Character”. Reprinted with permission.
The normally quiet nighttime hours on September 27th weren’t particularly quiet. An unwelcome guest by the name of Hurricane Helene came knocking on the door. I woke up at 3:33 AM to gurgling in the bathroom, caused by accelerating winds forcing air down the roof vent. The Lord told me to pray for protection against tornadoes. I got down on my face and prayed.
The next morning, I learned that my in-laws next door prayed from 4-5 AM and my neighbors up the road prayed the Rosary from 5-6 AM. At some point during that time, the eye wall of the hurricane passed over us. I heard we got 10 inches of rain in 36 hours and had hundred-mile-an-hour winds.
By around 8:00 Friday morning, the winds calmed enough for us to look around. The devastation was unbelievable. Trees were down everywhere. Dozens crossed our little country road, in ones and twos, or whole stands laid down like bowling pins.
Thankfully, no one on our street was hurt, and only a couple of neighbors had tree damage on their houses. There were several near misses, like the pine laying two inches from my neighbor’s brand-new barn, or the 20-inch tree sitting five inches from another neighbor’s truck like he’d parked next to it. My close friend’s son woke up to a pine lying down next to him in bed.
I sat down with my wife to pray morning prayer when I heard something: the song of a chainsaw roaring to life. It took a conscious effort to finish our prayers as more and more chainsaws joined the chorus. It was a primal call, to impose order on chaos, as the Holy Spirit did on the first day of creation.
We wrapped up our prayers, and I raced to my shed to get my chainsaw, a big Husqvarna Rancher 450 with a 20-inch bar. I filled the gas tank and the bar oil reservoir, checked the tension on the chain, and raced toward the sound of manliness.
I wasn’t disappointed. Most of my neighbors were out on the road ripping through thickets of pine and oak branches, sawing trunks into logs that could be moved. Our neighbor, Mr. Reeves, whose family name is on our road sign, showed up on his tractor wearing a yellow rain slicker and pajama bottoms. As men with chainsaws chopped up trees, he pushed logs to the side of the road.
It took over an hour to clear most of our road, and then we turned to driveways. My in-laws and some neighbors had the worst of it. I sawed up so many trees that I lost count.
At some point, my saw got dull. I could tell right away. Instead of chewing out fat chips of wood, it started spraying sawdust. The time it took to get through a tree doubled or tripled. It was time to shut it down. I didn’t have a fresh chain. I had to wait until I could put some bite back on those little metal teeth.
I have an electric chain sharpener, but that isn’t much help when the electric grid is wiped out for 50 miles in every direction. I had to wait until we got a generator up and running. That took more than a couple of hours because pieces of the generator kept falling off.
Once the generator started humming, I got to work sharpening. The basic technique is simple. The sharpener has a clamp that holds the tooth so a grinding wheel can hit each tooth at precisely the right angle. The sharpener takes care of the geometry, but I had to be careful not to hold the grinder wheel on the tooth too long or push too hard because the steel will get hot and lose its temper. Just a second is enough. I could tell a tooth was done when the point caught the skin on my fingertip.
While I sharpened the chain tooth by tooth, my thoughts drifted to Proverbs 27:17. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” I’ve heard this proverb interpreted as talking about swords meeting on the field of battle, but any Lord of the Rings fan can tell you that a sword doesn’t come off the battlefield sharper than it started. When the smoke clears, it is dull and notched, and sometimes broken into pieces. Narsil, anyone? (That’s the sword that Sauron broke into pieces and was later reforged for Aragorn.
Sharpening a blade doesn’t look anything like a battlefield. It takes care and attention. Focus and quiet. When iron sharpens iron, one piece of iron needs to be hard and abrasive, like a file or grindstone. But the sharper I want something, the less abrasive my sharpener will be. When I sharpen knives for leatherwork, I use a 4000-grit stone that feels as smooth as printer paper.
With a chainsaw, it’s easier to ruin the saw blade than to sharpen it. I have to focus on getting the correct angle, apply only the right amount of pressure, and avoid grinding off too much metal.
It’s also important to recognize that sharpening is not a cosmetic operation. Not that a sharp knife isn’t a beautiful thing, because it is. Rather, sharpening is ordered to some purpose beyond appearance. I sharpen a chainsaw so I can cut through trees like they’re made of sponge cake.
So, what does it mean to say “one man sharpens another”? A sharp blade is fit for its purpose. A man that is sharp is fit for HIS purpose. What is a man’s purpose? To know, love, and serve God in this life, and spend eternity with Him in the next. To love our neighbor as we love ourselves. To cultivate and fill God’s creation.
To be sharpened by another man means to have my character shaped so that I am fit to fulfill my purpose. Conflict doesn’t sharpen. It dulls and damages. Care and attention, with just the right amount of abrasiveness, is what I need. Heavy reshaping of a man’s character might require more abrasiveness but in carefully measured doses. Too much abrasiveness too quickly, and the man being sharpened might lose his temper.
The sharpening of a man’s character can happen in many ways: a relationship between a father and son (which shapes and sharpens), a bible study, the confessional, spiritual direction, or a men’s group. Even being around men who give good examples of lives well lived can sharpen a man’s character and help him live God’s purpose for his life.
After looking at the devastation that Friday morning, I needed a little sharpening. I didn’t jump into action – I started wandering around looking for a cup of hot coffee in a world without electricity. The sound of those chainsaws roaring to life was like a fine abrasive, scraping against my dullness and bringing me back to the point. I was called to serve my neighbors. The sound of the Redneck Chainsaw Strikeforce launching into action shook me from my lethargy and helped me become a little more the man God created me to be.
Jesus snatched me out of the darkness and saved me from complete madness. If you want to hear more of that story, check out Demoniac, now available on Amazon.
