A Treacherous Path

You are looking at the entrance to one of my favorite places. Blackacre (my apologies for my aparent inability to quit thinking about it). As an adult this cattle guard makes my heart pound as I know I'm about to start a weekend or if I'm lucky, a whole week of experiencing God and nature. But as a child, this threshold made my heart beat in panic. All I had to do was walk across the cattle guard and the fun and excitement would begin. But wait! First we have to think of all the scary stuff that could happen while making that short journey. My tennis shoe could slip and I could get my leg caught in there. Or there could be a snake coiled up underneath just waiting to spring up and bite my ankle. Or one of those pipes could role and I'd be on my back even closer to the snake! yipe! Even now, as an adult...I sometimes get that weird knot in my belly when I walk across. But even with all the possibilities of harm that could befall me during that journey, nothing could stop me from making it. I know the promised experience is worth the risk.

There are so many things we can all become. There are many wonderful relationship offered us. So many opportunities for growth as God calls to reach out and love people Are we willing to take the risks along the way? The risk getting our feelings hurt? The risk of being rejected? I'm often worried people will think I'm strange when I'm compelled to talk to strangers in the grocery store. It's funny to watch the face of a young kid about to sack your groceries after you've spoken to him/her in a kind and genuine way. That kid probably thinks I'm a freak but later may feel good that someone actually wondered how his day went. Totally worth the risk!

I'll have the Fish Basket

I found this 'thing' hanging on the wall of the shed where we keep the tractor at our farm. I had no idea what it was but I was sure that some kind of ground cover should planted in the bottom so it can spread out and hang through the little holes and that a flowering plant is just screaming to sit in the top section. So I asked my dad what it would have been used for in it's previous life. I'm not a fisherwoman so I would never have known that it most likely hung off the side of someone's boat...in the water...and that once caught, fish would be stored in there till the end of a day of fishing. In the divider part in the middle there is a spring door through which you stuff the fish so they can swim out. It's a trap.

Since it seemed like no one wanted or needed it anymore, I decided to make it mine. Rather than it hanging around doing nothing and having ceased to be needed, it will now have a new life as entertainment for me. Now I just wait for someone to come to my house and see it with plants stuck in there so they can ask, "What is that thing?" I love to think that even though it was made to be a trap, the tendrils of a plants will free themselves and be all they can be.

I hear many people talk of Sin as a trap...one that they don't understand how to get out of. I say that Sin will never not be a part of our lives but that we can thrive and grow in spite of it! What a lovely rusty reminder :)

Dad's Pocketknife

Today I heard Earl Pitts on KHYI Dallas talking about how to find a 'real man'. "It's very simple", he said, "You simply ask a guy if you can borrow his pocketknife. If he reaches into his front pants pocket and produces a pocketknife, you've found yourself a real man".

During the entire commentary I thought of my dad and his pocketknife. He's always carried one for purposes that seem to be endless. My dad is an expert with that thing. He can remove a thorn or a splinter from my finger with his pocketknife. He can get that last piece of pecan out of the shell...wasting none of it. He can sharpen a pencil or make a referrence mark on a fencepost. He can remove a small branch from a sappling one moment and then slice off a piece of apple the next...of course he stabs the piece of apple and eats it right off the knife. When other families are preparring a meal of cold cuts and are fumbling and fighting that little plastic thing under the cap on a brand new squeeze bottle of mustard...my dad is reaching in that front pocket, opening the pocketknife and removing that blasted obstruction. I've had stray strings removed from the hem of my skirt on Easter morning with that pocketknife. He's saved many a cow from eating that poison weed that grows on the banks of the Guadelupe by cutting them down and throwing them in the river. He removes paint can lids, trims off the extra length on the cats' flea collar or just sits quietly contemplating life while he cleans under his fingernails...the man just takes care of stuff.

It is a special sound when he reaches for that pocketknife...one of my favorite sounds. The sound of change, some spare nails and other random hardware and that pocketknife getting swished around in there. He reaches out for me to hand him whatever I can't open, gets the lid off, then hands it back to me...handle first. That's a Real Man.