Life & Grace

A retired farmer told me a great story the other day. I thought it was a lot more beautiful than he intended it to be.

One spring he was plowing his land.

I imagined a heavy steel plow violently ripping up the sod, exposing dark earth to the blazing sun. This was business and the ground had to be plowed to prepare for planting. His livelihood depended on getting the most out of every inch of ground. This is not for the feint of heart or the sentimental fool.

Suddenly a Killdeer ran out in front of him shrieking loudly and acting like it was wounded. He knew it was protecting a nest, trying to distract the threat away from its young.

Too bad for the bird. It was the wrong place to put a nest. It should have been more careful. Life is a harsh reality. There isn't room for much grace.

He slowed down and looked carefully ahead until he spotted the nest on the ground. Then he carefully maneuvered his tractor around the nest leaving everything intact.

What? Are you mad? What happened to survival of the fittest? You made a mess out of your field. Now you have a gap in your row. Time is money and you just wasted it and you won't get paid back for it.

Sometime later he was sitting at his kitchen window when a Killdeer came out of the field chirping loudly and trailing several young behind. They marched across the lawn so he could get a good look at them then headed back in the direction they came from. He likes to think it was the same bird he encountered earlier who brought the young by so he could see what he spared and to say thank you.

I think he is right.

It Stays With You

In the May/June 2008 issue of Books & Culture there is an article by David Graham, entitled Heal Thyself, that begins with a quote from C.S. Lewis. "Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we still are." I've been thinking how true this is when it comes to dealing with pain.

I seem to remember another Lewis quote that was something about our lives being like the rings of a tree. (I could be way off on the source of this.) We are constantly adding more rings but the rings we already have are still there. I remember studying tree rings in school. You could easily tell when something traumatic happened to the tree because the rings would be different. Sometimes they would be really small reflecting little growth, caused, perhaps, by a drought. Sometimes they would be very dark suggesting some other serious trauma. No matter the cause the evidence was obvious.

I think that is a helpful way to think of pain. When something painful happens to us it leaves a mark. We grow new rings but the mark is still there to remind us of what happened. The more rings we grow the more the pain lessens. New growth has a way of insulating us to some degree. We may even get to a point where we look pretty good on the outside. But deep inside the mark is always there. It has become a part of us and will never go completely away. It is who we are.

Nickel And Dimed

I know there is a whole list of things like this but I hate getting nickeled and dimed. Why do really nice hotels charge for high-speed internet while cheaper ones give it for free? I know that the cheaper ones use it to draw customers while the expensive ones figure it doesn't matter to their clients. But this is the age of big-discount hotel bookings via internet, after all, and some of us poor folk like to take advantage. All that internet fee does is irritate me and make me think the hotel is cheap... like me.

Okay, so I'm hypocritical. But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth anyway and is it really worth it? I mean if they're going to let us poor people stay there don't they want us raving about how great it is? I better quit before I get started on Barnes & Noble. These people need to realize that charging for access may look profitable to the balance sheet but it does more harm than good.

Now let me say a few words about insurance companies. On second thought, I better watch my blood pressure.

Ooooh, that rant felt good.

At That Stage

My sons were in a bad car accident today. Ben, the oldest, drives Adam and Michael to school just a little after 7 AM. This morning a young lady pulled out of a side road directly in front of them. It was a direct hit right into the side of her car where her young daughter was sitting.

Ben was going about 50 mph and it happened so fast he probably didn't get slowed down much when they hit. The car spun around and ended up facing the opposite direction. The seat belts and airbags did their job and none of my sons were seriously hurt.

The passengers in the other car were not so lucky. The driver was thrown from the car and ended up underneath it. Some people passing by were able to lift the car off of her and a helicopter transported her and her daughter to the hospital. We found out this evening that they both have extensive injuries but it looks like they will recover.

I brought the boys home with the blessing of the principal who met us at the scene. They seemed a little out of sorts which was understandable. Ben was concerned about the lady and her daughter. People kept telling him it wasn't his fault but it still bothers him which I think is good. He turns 18 a week from today and I'm proud of the man he is becoming.

I hate getting phone calls like that but I'm at that stage of my life. I would be pleased if I never got another one but it is a dark reminder that life is fragile. My boys seems indestructible but after looking at the remains of our Buick I'm just thankful they are still here.

And I pray for a full recovery of that young lady and her daughter.

A New Friend

I made a new friend over the weekend. She died last Thursday and I did the funeral service yesterday. I never met this person while she was alive and I actually did not begin to learn some of her most basic details until Friday.

By the time of the funeral on Monday I found myself liking this person. I heard story after story from her family and friends. I knew that people would be sharing only the good things they could remember for such is the nature of the mourning process. But I think we would have been friends.

It's strange to feel the loss of a person you never knew existed before they died.

Yikes, More Sin.

Just when you thought you had a handle on the 7 deadly sins out comes a list with even more. This article on the CNN website starts with "A Vatican official has listed drugs, pollution and genetic manipulations as well as social and economic injustices as new areas of sinful behavior."

I kind of like the move toward sins with "social resonance" as they describe them because I think all to often we only think of ourselves and forget about our society as a whole. And I do think it sometimes helps to point out behavior that we don't necessarily notice is sinful.

But here is the downside with these lists. Some people are going to see them as a check list. As long as they don't do them, or get them absolved if they do commit them, then everything is alright. Righteousness ceases to be a matter of the heart, there is no relationship with God, and we go back to being a follower of Christ in name only.

It will be interesting to see how people respond to these additions. In the meantime I better go sharpen my pencil. This stuff is getting hard to keep track of.