Is Your Stick Straight?

In a recent blog dealing with justification, I mentioned that Steven Judd's 'stick was straight,' and someone asked me what that meant.  Ironically, I got that term from a 1950 movie, Stars In My Crown, which stars Joel McCrea.  You may recall McCrea was the actor who portrayed Steven Judd.



Dean Stockwell, Joel McCrea and Juano Hernandez
in Stars In My Crown

 In the film, Ellen Drew (who always played a woman I wanted to marry) tells of how she had many suitors, and yet turned them all down.  Her mother became exapasperated, telling her of a child who went into the forest looking for a perfectly straight stick.  The child spent all day looking for this stick, never finding it.  All the child managed to do was become lost.  The mother told her, "You're looking for a straight stick."  Yet when she met Josiah Gray (McCrea), she knew she'd found her 'straight stick.'

Steven Judd's stick was justification, and he found it.  Others have different sticks.  With some it might be love, and others power.  A few, it might be a goal for a sports team.  Those particular sticks won't be straight, as rarely are they undefeated.  We need to be careful what we set as our sticks, our goals.  The phrase "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it," is more than an adage," but a pearl of wisdom.

What is your stick?  And is it one that when it's obtained, will it be a straight one?