on the chisel’s edge.

This post was written in bits and pieces across many small moments in my day, in the spirit of my last post: “on shrines.” 

The memories.

When I was younger, I could be a bit dumb.¹ 

To wit: I once argued with a friend over the correct pronunciation of the word “ambience.” I was unequivocally wrong,² a fact I didn’t find out until years later because, bafflingly, that’s how long it took me to look it up. 

Another friend routinely called me “pedantic.” I had no idea what that meant, so I smiled and pretended like I did. This was likely a dead giveaway of my ignorance, since had I known the meaning, I might have scowled instead.

In college, I smiled and nodded my way through countless conversations about economics and classical literature. Why yes, it is a thrill to be reading Plato’s Republic again after all these years! I, too, remember fondly those middle school days when we read it for the first time… I felt intellectually outgunned… so I faked it.

These memories (and others, too – many others),³ though just brief moments in time, have stuck with me for years.

I think it’s because they tell me something about the state of my convictions. In particular, they seem to indicate that my conviction for learning had waned. 

I’d lost the urge to expand my understanding of the world, the urge to push back against the boundaries of ignorance in my own mind. 

Why?

I could posit a list of hypotheses: pride, shame, laziness, apathy. Choose my poison!

But these vices might only be a product of a deeper crisis: I’d allowed my conviction to grow dull.

The dulling.

Like chisels, the convictions we hold refine us, transforming the obstinate material of our character chip by chip. It’s hard to care deeply about something without it also shaping you.

I’m no Michelangelo, but there’s a special kind of pleasure in sculpting myself into something different and new. And unlike a boring old block of granite, my character yields endless opportunity for reshaping and refining. In this way, the complexity and beauty and mystery of the inner self springs forth.

So I take these convictions of mine and I chisel away. But time passes, and my hammerstrokes don’t make the same marks that they used to. The blades of my chisels grow dull, and those things I care deeply about don’t shape me like they used to. 

And so: the thrill of learning dulls, and the opportunity to learn something new fails to find purchase in my psyche. This chisel of conviction begins to glance and bounce instead of bite and carve.

I look at my toolbox and realize with growing unease that it is filled with more chisels of similar quality. I pick one up at random. Along the handle is inscribed: “hometown.” I run my thumb along its blunt edge, and I realize the place where I was raised feels just like another place now, not the land of intrigue and adventure from my youth.

I pull another from the box. Its handle reads: “justice.” And I remember how I felt in those first years of non-profit work, the tenderness towards the victories and defeats in the fight against human trafficking. I realize it’s been a long time since this chisel has gouged into my character and shaped me in a new way; its blade is chipped from overuse.

My tools had worn out; their bite had lost its teeth. And now, with fewer tools with which to craft myself, the work moved slower, was more limited.

So what was to be done? What does one do with a chisel that has gone dull? Google it. I’ll wait. What did you find? That’s right: when you have a dull blade, you sharpen it. 

The sharpening.

If there’s one thing I’ve most eagerly anticipated as a new dad, it’s reading with my son.

We’ve had a healthy stock of children’s books since he was born, but something is missing when reading aloud to an infant who doesn’t even have neck control yet. Sure, they’re a captive audience – but it’s nice for the audience to have some skin in the game. 

When he got a little older, my son became so fixated on crawling, walking, and other such manifestations of movement that it was hard to keep him still long enough to get a book off the shelf.

But now, at the ripe old age of 18 months, I think we’ve hit a sweet spot. 

We have two book caches in our home: a bookshelf in his bedroom and a toy wagon⁴ in the living room. I’ll be sitting on the couch and see him walk up to the wagon, grab a book, and toddle over to me⁵ with a widening grin on his face. “Is it reading time?!” I cry, invoking a phrase coined by my wife. He’ll cackle, bring (or throw) the book to me, and climb into my lap. 

Okay, now here’s where it gets good. 

We read. He points and imitates what he sees. He turns the pages for me. Sometimes I make silly voices. Certain books are his favorites. Previously, it was “The Itsy Bitsy Pumpkin.”⁶ Now, it’s “Good Dog, Carl.”⁷

Okay, I lied – here’s where it gets good.

When we’re reading one of his favorites and we turn to the final page, I say, “The End!” and he says, “Gah!” which I’m pretty sure translates to “Again!”

So we read it again, and sometimes we read it a third time, too.⁸ He’ll sit, transfixed on certain pages for longer than others, his eyes searching every scene, engrossed in minute details. And as I witness, again and again, this fascination with what might otherwise seem quite mundane, I feel something change within myself.

His fascination with the world around him sharpens my conviction. The edge of my “learning” chisel grows finer from the grit of my son’s enthusiasm. Theo is a whetstone.

In the same way, when my wife and I moved back to my hometown three years ago, I thought I would teach her what there was to know of the place. But as we walked the streets of Stroudsburg together, I found to my delight that she had new perspectives on the same old streets, and her natural curiosity unveiled a town fresh and new to the both of us. (For example, did you know that the first school in the area for African Americans still stands on Thomas Street?⁹ I sure didn’t!) 

The novelty of her perspective and experience rekindles my enthusiasm for my hometown. My wife is a whetstone.

Or, similarly, I listen to stories of rescue and redemption as they’re shared at my workplace. These stories, when read as headlines or news blurbs, tend to drift past me like fog. But when shared from the lips of a caseworker or lawyer or a survivor themself, something shifts. Their words are steeped in grief, or relief, or more often, both. They share more than a tale of horror; they share from personal experience, and – not immediately, not in a lightning strike, but slowly, surely – their words invoke a change. 

My heart splinters anew, my passion rejuvenates, and my conviction for the work of justice once again has the bite it needs to craft the person I’m becoming. These storytellers are whetstones.

The toolbox.

The edges of my convictions have dulled and been sharpened. They will surely dull again. And I’ve got more than just the three.

My toolbox is brimming with convictions, but they’re only as useful as they’re well-maintained. So much of life consists of returning to the whetstone and keeping our tools sharp. 

So… I need to find my whetstones. 

Who in my life embodies convictions of mine that have gone dull? Who invigorates them with new perspectives or enthusiasm? I must draw near to these people.

And I need to do more than draw near. I need to pay attention. Observe their actions. Listen to their words. Attention is finite, so I must invest it wisely.

And, of course, I’ve got to keep chiseling away. There’s much to be done in life, and I’ve got little patience for a toolbox full of blunt blades.

May your chisels be sharp, and your whetstones abundant.

the footnotes.

1. I still can be. But I could be then, too. ↩︎
2. It’s not pronounced “AM-bee-yince.” ↩︎
3. Feel free to share some in the comments if you know me personally… ↩︎
4. Don’t ask me why the books go in the wagon. Ask the kid. ↩︎
5.  Toddlers really do “toddle.” ↩︎
6. “Itsy Bitsy Pumpkin” book synopsis: tiny pumpkin rolls around a spooky town until he gets lost and must find his way home. The star of the show: stinky goblin feet. ↩︎
7. “Good Dog, Carl” book synopsis: terrible parent lets a dog babysit. Things go surprisingly well. ↩︎
8. We haven’t hit the excruciating-number-of-repetitions part of childhood, but I’m sure it’s just around the corner. ↩︎
9. https://www.pahomepage.com/hidden-history/black-history-month/hidden-history-stroudsburg-maps/ ↩︎