From this Sunday's Gospel
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
My practice of using beautiful walking sticks makes me very visible in church. So no wonder pastoral staff members and others immediately think of me when this Gospel is read. The walking stick indeed has become a prominent part of my appearance.
Why are walking sticks so important to my personal and public identity?
When I developed my balance problem about a decade ago, two of my doctors advised me to use a cane or walking stick. My dad and my aunt were both very resistant to using them. I decided I was not going to follow their bad examples.
So I first went to a health good supply store and bought a cheap mental adjustable walking stick and a cheap mental adjustable cane. I strongly advise everyone considering their use to do so. Figure out what is the right size for both the walking stick and the cane. Then figure out which is best.
In my case it was easy. The walking stick is not used for support. Rather it is a third point of contact with the ground besides my feet. Feelings of balance depend upon feedback from the muscles, visual cues, and the inner ear sensations. The extra information about the ground delivered through my arms gives my brain a sense that I am balanced. It is very much like riding a bicycle. When you get on a bike and push forward there are immediate sensations of possible imbalance but these diminish as you move forward. The same occurs when I use a walking stick.
The social aspect of the walking stick is just as important as the physical aspect. Beautiful walking sticks allow other people to process my disability in a very positive way. I constantly get positive comments everywhere I go. People also make way for me and open doors which is a great help to avoiding mishaps and falls.
Walking sticks can be intimidating. When I was called to jury duty, the officer at the body scanner grabbed my stick, inspected to see if it had a concealed spike, then asked me if I was required to use it. I told him I was advised to use it by two physicians. I now carry a prescription from one of my physicians for its use to avoid any hassles from law enforcement. Of course police officers are trained at using a baton. They are probably far more aware than I of exactly how dangerous I could be.
All of my walking sticks are from a firm in Texas near the Brazos river. They are all hand made by a colony of artisans. However they are now a subsidiary of a large corporation. A lot of the colorful walking sticks are no longer available due to supply problems in recent years. You can probably get some cheaper at Amazon. If you have a lot of contact with the elderly you might want to bookmark this post.
These are the walking sticks I usually use in church. They come up to about mid chest. Enough to be very colorful and impressive but not intimidating.
The first one below started off as my Saint Patrick staff being emerald green with suggestions of a bishop's staff and snakes. I have used it more generally in ordinary time to suggest Viriditas Hildegard's notion of divine greenness, The middle one is my Advent Jesse Tree. It is actually a light violet. The final one is my Passiontide staff. These are a little taller coming up to my chin.
Below are my "episcopal' staffs. They are taller than my other staffs coming up to about eye level. They are intimidating in enclosed spaces. However I sometimes use them for walking at Headlands Beach. Wonder what would happen if I went up to a bishop and said "Want to trade?"
The walking sticks below are my favorites for use at Headlands Beach. They are almost as tall as the episcopal walking sticks but less intimidating because they are not as wide at the top.
The photograph below illustrates two variations from the standard rubber tip.
Second down is a metal spike which is concealed with a small rubber tip. If you take off the small rubber tip, you can drive the stick into the garden ground or the beach sand. Very handy if you want to descend to the ground or beach, holding on to the stick and then use the stick to assist in getting up
Third down is a large tripod rubber tip that gives the walking stick greater stability. Very helpful in walking in the snow and ice, or having the walking stick stand upright without any assistance.
Below are a set of smaller walking sticks. The one on the right is actually a child's size shepherd's staff, probably good for Christmas pageants. It was the first one that I purchased. I had figured out that it was the right size to put over my left arm when I received communion. I subsequently found that I could lay other walking sticks into the bend of my elbow when receiving communion
Receiving communion with a walking stick was a big eye-opener as to how fast our communion process is. I had to slow it down. That is I stop in front of the communion minister. SHIFT the walking stick from my right hand into the corner of my elbow. THEN hold out my hands and take communion. THEN reverse the process before leaving the communion minister. A much more solemn and moving communion experience for me. Probably frustrating for some communion ministers and people in line behind me who are used to fast food practices.
All walking sticks can be engraved precisely as you specify (for a fee of course). The engraving on my shepherd stick says The LORD is My shepherd. The capitalized LORD signifies as in many translations the Divine Name. However I also chose to capitalized My as an expression of anti-clericalism. That is I accept no human substitutes even though other people may.
Wow, Jack - that is quite a collection of sticks you have!
ReplyDeleteI love the liturgical thoughtfulness you've put into your purchase and uses of the walking sticks.
I had to preach this past weekend, and that Jesus permitted a walking stick was something that struck me as well. My homily ended up going in a different direction, so I didn't research it or reflect on it any farther. (You really should post these reflections *before* the preacher has to come up with a homily :-)). But my initial thought is that the country through which the Twelve would have had to walk was one of poor roads and rough tracks, and perhaps quite hilly. A walking stick may have been thought to be a necessity for such a traveler. It occurs to me that, should a traveler twist an ankle or otherwise become disabled while in the wilderness, a walking stick may make the difference between being able to hobble to safety and being stuck in the middle of nowhere, perhaps with predators and robbers to worry about.
While it is possible that walking sticks were an important source of self protection, e.g. the equivalent of a six gun in the wild West, they may have been very natural for people who did a lot of walking.
DeleteI had a collection of natural walking sticks at the cabin since I walked about a half mile down to the lake and back each day. Often I would find a suitable walking stick on the lake shore. It had a lot of driftwood which I also collected.
Obviously as a young guy I didn't need any physical assistance or protection. I found it was just a very natural thing to use.
In some times places staffs and canes were very fashionable.
On a somewhat related liturgical note, vergers are an important part of the Anglican tradition. If you have every noticed any of their processions they often have a person called a verger who carries a big stick over his shoulder. Verger is from the Latin word for staff. They were meant for crowd control. Kind of "make way for the presider" which might have been helpful in outdoor processions.
I wonder if there's any relationship to the drum major's baton as he precedes the marching band.
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