Primitive Camping & Bushcraft

The Quiet Truth of Camping Alone on the River

Episode Summary

In this episode, Chris reflects on a listener’s comment about “getting too preachy” and shares why faith naturally flows into his outdoor life. From riverbank stillness to tending a morning fire, he shows how bushcraft lessons and Scripture, both teach us to prepare, listen, and find meaning in the quiet moments.

Episode Notes

Show Notes:
Sometimes it only takes one comment to spark deep reflection. A listener recently told me, “You lost me when you got all preachy. That’s not what I signed up for.” I get it. Some folks want nothing but gear talk and survival skills, and believe me, I love that too. But for me, faith isn’t separate from the outdoors. It’s the lens I see it all through.

In this episode, I share two powerful memories from camping along the river: one morning when I realized I wasn’t out there to find God but was already standing in what He made, and another when the verse “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) came alive in the sound of the water. Those quiet moments shaped the way I camp, the way I see creation, and the way I live.

You’ll also hear one of my favorite fire tips: how to prepare your fire the night before so it’s ready to spring back to life in the morning. Just like faith, sometimes all it takes is tending the coals, a little preparation, and a spark to get the flame going again.

If you’re here for the gear, you’ll get it. If you’re here for the grit, you’ll get that too. But you’ll also hear the faith that fuels everything I do. And maybe the one thing you didn’t sign up for will end up being the thing you need most.

Action of the Week:
Start a fire this week in your backyard, a fire pit, or even a pizza pan for practice. Prepare your tinder, kindling, and fuel ahead of time so it’s ready to go. As the flames catch, put your phone away and sit in the stillness. Notice the details. If you believe, look for God’s fingerprints. If you don’t, let the outdoors teach you something anyway.

Episode Transcription

(upbeat music) Welcome to the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Speir. So here we're gonna talk about gear, grit and the kind of stories you only get around a fire. It's all about learning, adapting and keeping your faith strong. So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman or just looking to unplug and reconnect, you're in the right place. So pull up a chair by the fire and let's get into it. I'm down here at Camp Wut-Da-Heck this evening, The sun's dipping low behind the tree line and start to paint all the pine trees a gold color, beautiful gold color. I got the cicadas serenading me in the heat song, the summer song. (Chris laughing) I mean, it is hot, it's like 90 something degrees out here. Matter of fact, I got my old Jerry fan and I forgot to turn it on, appointed to me. But I can hear the birds starting to like the morning and the songbirds start to slow down for the evening. Their song starts changing a little bit as they're looking for their roost. I got one red bird over here, a cardinal, that he keeps looking at me like upset that I'm in his generalized area. Beautiful birds though, beautiful birds. But they're all starting to settle down for the evening looking for their roost. The fire in front of me and the fire ring is popping and shifting and sending light blue or gray smoke up and that translucent bluish color. And the smell of oak is just, golly, is there anything better? Taking a deep breath and you let in that rich, earthly aroma. It's not earthly, it's earthy, rich earthy. I always do that, I get words mixed up or say words wrong. I guess that's me from South Mississippi. But they something about an oak fire, a hardwood fire. They something about it. Now you could tell the difference what's cooking, what ain't. I tend to use oak whenever I'm cooking stuff on the barbecue or whatnot. That smell, it just seems to wrap around you and settles you down for the evening and it makes you feel like you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And in moments like that, my mind tends to wander a little bit and today, this afternoon, it was really, really wondering. I wandered to a comment that a commenter posted, somebody, a listener posted on my podcast platform where it says, "You lost me with getting all preachy." That's not what I signed up for. And if I read that with a little bit of intent to it, I apologize, it wasn't supposed to be that way. I was just reading it, but sometimes you can't help but add to what you read from somebody else talking to you through a text. That's why you cannot interpret what a text or a email or anything written is supposed to sound like. You can't judge a conversation off of that. So I've been thinking about that. I'm not here to argue with it. I don't wanna argue with it. But because it made me reflect on my faith and why my faith shows up in this podcast in the first place. It made me think about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and who hears it. There was many years, there was many, many, many, many, many years that I would not talk about my faith. There was many times that, you know, the difference between looking at me and looking at a Christian, you couldn't tell that I was a Christian. So when I was pondering this thing, I was looking back at a trip I took a few years ago, camping on a sandbar along the river. And if anybody knows me, I can't stand sand. If you've been deployed to the desert, you know what I mean about sand. You do not like sand. I remember that night was like the air had been cool enough to clean to the ground that morning. I had to set my tarp real low because there was so much condensation in the air, so much humidity in the air that night. And so I put my tarp real low and pitched it low. And it wasn't raining or anything like that, but it was just to keep me from getting damp. It was to keep me from getting saturated. The fire was down to just some glowing coals. There wasn't no rush. There wasn't no noise. It was just a slow warmth working its way back to the camp. I was stoking the fire, throwing a little bit here, a little bit there. The river was calm. It was like a, it's hard to explain. It was still rushing, you know, however many feet per second or whatnot, but it was kind of calm. You know, that first thing in the morning calm, beautiful calm. The water was sliding past the bank like it didn't have anywhere else it needed to go. I sat there with a cup of coffee, watching the light dance between the tree trunks and that's when it hit me. I wasn't out there trying to find God. I wasn't out there trying to find God. I was already standing inside what he had already made. And that brings to mind another evening when I was camping alone on the river one time. I do a lot of alone camping. (laughs) I set up this small camp with sitting by the bank with a, had a line in the water I was sitting there fishing, hoping to catch me a fish or two for dinner. The world around me had settled into that late day rhythm type stuff, you know, the crows passing overhead, calling each other. The squirrels leaping from branch to branch searching for that last meal or looking for a little acorn or whatnot, you know, just before night comes. And the sound of the water seemed to, grow louder and longer. The more and more I sat there. It wasn't that the river had changed, but it started to feel like I was, it was pulling my attention. Almost like it was saying, hey, listen, listen. You know what I mean? If you ever been out there and truly just took a few minutes just to concentrate on the natural environment around you, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's almost like the quietness gets so loud when you're primitive camping, whenever you're hiking or whenever you go out hunting or whatever. It's like nature, nature calls out to you sometimes, you know, it's hard to explain. And then without forcing the thought, a verse came to mind, a quiet whisper is clear in my heart as if someone has spoken it right next to me. Said, be still and know that I am God. For any of you interested, that Psalms 46 verse 10. That's all it was. There was no long misses, no dramatic moment, just stillness in that verse. But it hit me hard. It hit me hard to this very day. Sometimes the loudest truth comes from the quietest moment. And that's why that comment sticks on me. Some folks, but folks, folks, some folks, F-O-L-K-S. Some folks just want outdoor content to be nothing but skills and gear. Hey, I love that too. I can nerd out about knives. I can nerd out about nuts, tarps. Hey, I love talking about fire starters. I can do that all day long. L-O-N-G. But for me, faith isn't a separate category that I only pull out on Sunday mornings. Faith is the lens that I see everything through. Now, it used to be a time when I did not. Faith shapes me the way I see risk and beauty and failure. And it also shapes me in the way I see success. I've decided I'm always going to be honest right here that if a piece of gear fails, I'm gonna tell you, hey, this thing is horrible. If a moment moves me, I'm gonna say that too. Even if that means someone says that's not what I signed up for. Now, when I know I'm going to want a fire in the mornings, this is the lesson or the main subject for today. And I wouldn't say main subject. We're covering that, but we'll get back to it. But when you know you're gonna want a fire in the morning, what are you gonna do? Wait for the morning? No, you're gonna prepare that thing right there before you go to bed. You're gonna prepare for your fire in the morning. That way you're not bumbling around the woods, bumbling, fumbling around the woods. You're gonna prepare it the night before. That means letting it burn down and scraping you some of them coals to the side, burying them with some of the ash that way. If you've never done that, it does work. Go ahead and get your tender and your kindling and everything ready for in the morning time. And if it's wet or whatnot, being able to split your log and make feather sticks so that when it comes morning time, you just blow through that ash or move some of that ash and blow them coals back into life. Give that stick a little bit of that feather stick, give it a little bit of heat and a little bit of oxygen. And see that orange glow. Everything's gonna start small. Everything starts small, even with your faith, everything's gonna start small, but it's gonna grow over time. Then you start putting in all the stuff that you collected. You start putting your kindling, start your pencil size sticks and then all of a sudden your finger size sticks and then your wrist size sticks and then your split woods and stuff to that sort. You know how to build a fire. And if you don't, guess what? You're in the right place because I got plenty of episodes on how to start a fire, how to build a fire. If it rained overnight, make sure you keep a few pieces of wood in your shelter. That way you can make some feather sticks of dry wood. Remember that the bark is gonna hold a little bit of the moisture. Split wood is gonna burn easier. If there's a little bit of wind out, use whatever you got to shield the fire in the first couple of minutes. I'll use my backpack or I'll put a log in front of it or I'll stand in front of the fire and kneel down in front of it to where I shield the fire, the flames from the wind and give it a chance to grow. Let that flame become strong. Are you guys starting to see a little bit of resemblance of what I'm talking about here? Because in everything I said is a metaphor about faith, love, life, whole nine yards. I always keep a little baggie with some dry tender with me just in case because you're gonna have one of those mornings one day that you can't get nothing to like for no reason. Sometimes a little bit of fat wood or a cotton pad with a dab of Vaseline or petroleum jelly because you can't say the Vaseline. Vaseline is a products name, but it has become synonymous with petroleum jelly. Big word synonymous. But if you have that morning stubborn morning fire, you know, he's knocking out with a little bit of fat wood, a little bit of cotton ball and Vaseline, you know, everybody does it. That's a little bit insurance. And one of my go-tos is the Blackbeard Firestarters. If you haven't used a Blackbeard Fireplow, I'm telling you right now, I carry a pack with me almost everywhere I go. If I go into the woods, I have Blackbeard Fireplows with me because it has become my easiest way. That and a cigarette lighter have become my two favorite ways to start a fire. Just using something to start your fire or having your fire started is gonna relieve a little bit of frustration and the rest of your day is gonna get along a lot better and you're not gonna be frustrated. You know, Romans chapter one, verse 20 says, "Since the creation of the world, "God's invisible qualities, "His eternal power and divine nature "have been clearly seen. "They have been understood from what has been made. "His eternal power and divine nature "have been clearly seen by everyone." So when I read that, I don't picture a church building. I don't picture somebody preaching to me. I picture mornings like what I was just talking about. I picture evenings just like this one, sun going out. A quiet camp, small fire. You got steam rising from your coffee cup. You got the dance of the smoke coming off of the wood, filling the air with the aroma of oak or whatever you're cooking. That's creation telling the truth about its creator, guys. And if I'm gonna be honest about the gear I use and the skills that I practice, I have to be just as honest about the moments that move me. And so do you. So to the person who said, quote, "You lost me with getting all preachy. "That's not what I signed up for." Unquote. Is it unquote or end quote? I think it's end quote. Hey, I hear you. Maybe you just stumbled across me for the skills and none of the talk about faith, but you're still welcome around the fire with me. But I'm gonna keep sharing the entire picture, the whole picture, because for me, faith and the outdoors cannot be separated. And we just read about it in Romans. Chapter one, verse 20. And maybe, just maybe, the one thing that you did not sign up for might be the thing you needed to hear the most. So sometime this week, oops, bumped the table, bumped the table again with my canoe. One day this week, I think we need to start doing an action of the week or a calling. You need to answer your calling. (laughs) Oh man. One day this week, no matter where you're at, make a fire. If you're at work, burn the place down. I didn't say that, I'm just joking, guys. No, I'm just joking, don't do that. What I'm trying to say is, sometime this week, practice, practice making a fire. Even if you're in your backyard, you're in a fire pit, you're having to use your barbecue pit, you know, charcoal barbecue pit or something like that. I even went as far as buying a pizza pan, one of these pizza trays, to where I could sit on my porch and practice making fire with fat wood or different shavings and stuff like that. And so the pizza pan is great because it's real wide and it gives you a lot of room to practice, you know. That's how I practice using a ferro rod for a long time until I got used to using my ferro rods. But what I want you to do is I want you to start a fire, do the work, put in the practice, get all your supplies and everything ready the night before. That way when you get up the next morning or the next day, sometime throughout your day, it's stress-free, you know, take a couple seconds, put you on some coffee or do whatever you're gonna do. But while that fire is burning, put your phone away, put your distractions away, and notice all the small details about this fire. Notice the smell, notice the sound, notice how the light's gonna shift around, notice the smoke. And if faith is part of your life, see if you can spot God's fingerprints in it. If faith isn't part of your life, see what their outdoors has to teach you anyway. And then come tell me what you saw, leave a comment on Spotify or Facebook or whatever. And trust me, I read every single comment. So if this helped you, if this helped you out, one of the dogs just did something over here and made a noise. But if this helps you, follow the show, share it with one person who loves the great outdoors. Go on over to Facebook, join the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft group, go ahead and like it and share it and pick up the book, Primitive Camping and Bushcraft from your favorite online retailer, Amazon, Walmart, all those Barnes and Noble, still available and share it with everybody. I really appreciate you guys. If you want, I can, I'll start taking comments about what the next episode should be like. I got like several of them already outlined, but I want you guys to have an input in this. And I am part of this community and you, I listen to the community. So if you guys have a topic that you want to talk about, let's talk about it. Within reason, don't go silly with it. Just because I'm a faith-based outdoorsman don't mean you have to, I will ignore. I said I read all comments, but I can't ignore them. (laughs) Anyway, guys, I thank you so much for joining me today on this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast and I will see you next time. Remember, in all your ways, acknowledge him. See you next time, God bless you. Thanks for sitting around the fire with me today. If this episode gave you something to think about, if it helped you feel a little bit more prepared or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit, go ahead and share it with someone else who might need it as well. We don't go camping to run away from life. We come out here to slow down and recharge. So grab another law, throw it on the fire, and remember this, in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. I'll see you next time, God bless you.