Wayfarer’s Tales — by David McLaughlan
RELIGION IN THE DIRT
I am a big Joseph Walker fan, and I just read one of his ValueSpeak tales where he described some people as living, breathing sermons. It inspired me so much I wanted to borrow the theme. Joseph, I hope you don’t mind.
A few years back I lived in a terraced house with a little front garden. I wanted to put a picket fence around that patch, but didn’t have the money to do it properly, so I gathered discarded wooden pallets and reclaimed decent posts wherever I could. I couldn’t bear the expense of concrete for the post holes and didn’t have much in the way of tools.
Some careful selection, cutting and staining meant I soon had enough pickets (not too full of nail holes and looking enough alike to be getting by with) to surround my garden. So, one evening, I set to work digging post holes.
I had a small garden trowel, a few hours of daylight and lots of grim determination. The spaces for the posts were marked and I started digging down. Because I didn’t have concrete I wanted the holes to be as tight as possible and as deep as possible. So I would loosen the clay and stones with the trowel then scrape them out with my hand. And deeper. And deeper.
I had to be at least elbow deep before a post would go in. And I had to repeat this process about a dozen times. What with laying on the ground, wiping the sweat from my brow and using my fingernails as garden implements … well … I was pretty dirty.
Then, from the vantage point of having a cheek to the ground, I saw some shiny shoes coming towards my house. I looked up and the rest of him was no less shiny. These Mormon lads take their business seriously and they dress like every visit is the most important job interview ever. (Which is how it should be, I suppose.)
Well, I groaned. At that time I didn’t know where I stood spiritually, and this really wasn’t the time to be setting me straight. I was tired, I was busy. Let’s face it, I was grumpy.
So, I made sure I was looking into the ground when he approached, but that didn’t faze him. He made some pleasant comment, introduced himself and said there was something important he’d sure like to discuss with me.
Picture the scene – There’s this grubby Scot with his arm down a hole beneath this tall, handsome young American, with his pressed black suit, his shiny name-badge, his crisp white shirt and dazzling dentistry. Did I mention I was grumpy?
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” I asked. (Maybe I snarled.) Couldn’t he see I was up to my elbows in dirt? And so on and so on.
He listened and he nodded and I hoped he’d just go away.
Then he looked at the sky, saw the light starting to fade.
“You’re going to need some help getting that finished before it gets dark. Here, let me …”
And the suit jacket was hung on a neighbour’s fence. And the sleeves were rolled up. (Did I mention that was a VERY white shirt?) And I had to snatch the trowel away from him to stop him kneeling down in the dirt next to me!
Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Even if only for the sake of his laundry.
I thanked him very much for the thought, I handed him his jacket and I saw that young fellow, in no uncertain terms, on his way.
Well, I did get finished – but not before dark. The fence was a solid one and still stands even though we no longer live in that house. I have no idea what my young Mormon friend did for the rest of the evening. Perhaps he thought me rude, perhaps he never thought of me again.
But I think of him frequently.
He never got to tell me his particular take on Christianity. He never mentioned his faith. But he was one of my first inklings that God didn’t just live in a church, he also lived in my street. He showed me that God’s family and God’s love means you and me, right here and right now.
Whether you’re dressed for it or not.
And every time I think of him I think of the words
attributed to St Francis of
I never understood it, until I saw it done.
— © David McLaughlan
“Finding the extra in the ordinary.”
Visit David’s SFPNN Featured Author page at: http://www.sfpnn.com/david_mclaughlan.htm
If you want to see
more of the world the way David sees it, visit http://www.myspace.com/wayfarerstales
Go to David’s blog at http://theextraintheordinary.blogspot.com/
E-mail: David