One evening in 1979, Ed Stilley, a preacher and homesteader in Hogscald Hollow, Arkansas, found himself feeling he had “no way out” after a deeply troubled period in his life. He fell asleep with a gun in his lap. He claims God then spoke to him in a dream, promising to “take care of the matter” as long as Stilley obeyed a strange command: make guitars and give them away to children for free.
When he awoke, Stilley put the gun away. Despite having none of the training or supplies needed for instrument-building, he began what would become a 30-year practice of hand-making guitars, ukuleles, violins, and dulcimers from scrap wood and found objects. He carved most of them with the words “True Faith True Light Have Faith in God” and, as he was instructed, gave them away free of charge. His spiritual despair — the exact cause of which he’s never made public — subsided.
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