Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:09:32 PM • MARTIAL MONK to 47samurai
Looks like it’s time to dust this off.
When I was a youngster I had the opportunity to bounce around the West and Midwest working on farms and ranches. Sometimes it was for relatives, sometimes for friends and sometimes on transient crews drifting from job to job. I wasn’t always the best on the crew but I always did my best. I was a willing hand and the reputation spread; strong as a mule and pert near as smart. I always had a job.
I was young, very young, to be on my own and my parents had the usual concerns. They allowed me the privilege of hanging with what sometimes could be a rough crowd on one condition: that I attend services at least once a week. It usually wasn’t difficult, I’d just tag along with whoever I was working for, or roust one of the other hands from their Sunday morning hangovers for a ride into town. If we were bunking in town I’d look in the phone book for the nearest Church or just take off walking. Rarely was it more than a few blocks before I found a congregation willing to take in a wayward soul for a day.
It was an adventuresome time and I met some fine people, some of whom are friends to this day. Depending on what part of the country I was in I was exposed to all kinds of religions. No matter what the shingle on the outside said, there was never a question but that I was in the House of the Lord and in good company. There were Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Mennonites, Mormons, Disciples, and Episcopalians and often a building with a simple cross, without name or denomination.
Sometimes I didn’t understand all of the rituals and traditions and doctrines but there were always willing teachers to whisper explanations of what I was seeing and what I was supposed to do. I gained an intimate understanding of just how deeply religious and good this country really is. They didn’t convert me from my chosen religion nor did they try. I was a guest and a welcome stranger, different but kneeling before the same immutable God. My mumbled apologies about my rough clothes would be brushed aside as unnecessary and I was welcomed in full fellowship in the spirit of the Lord.
If anyone should ever doubt the future of the Republic, I suggest that they take a Sunday off from services - the Lord will forgive - and be there, outside, as they end. Watch as those big doors shake, then crack and then fling open with the youngun’s spilling out onto the lawns, clear eyed and excited. Remember your youth as the older boys, hair slicked and awkward, imitate their parents as they talk to bright-eyed girls, the same as it has been for twenty American generations. Parents and older folks follow slowly as they greet and catch-up on the news from neighbors and friends. The strength of America is not in armored divisions or banks or governments, it is here in the heartland under the guiding hand of a merciful God, block after block, Church after Church. The Republic will stand.
My folks were a mite forgetful and it seems that every time I came back, they had moved and neglected to tell me the new address. I always found ‘em though, no matter how hard they tried.
Since that time I’ve kicked around the west some. I know these people. I’ve been to their baptisms, their weddings, their funerals. I’ve worked with them, played with them, drank with them, fought with them, hunted with them, fished with them, rodeoed with them, and prayed with them. Out here we aren’t much into asking if a man is praying to a Catholic God or a Mormon God, or a Baptist God. It’s enough if a man is inclined to bow his head and touch a knee. We may not worship or see God in exactly the same way but I’m right beside him with a prayer of my own. Before one bowed head is raised in distraction those who would disrupt are going to have to come through every man jack and bullrider north of the Platt and west of the divide.
I am eternally grateful to all the fine folks who took the time to welcome this wayfarer into their Churches and homes no matter how fleetingly. Seemingly fresh in my memory are the dozens of Sunday dinners in strangers’ homes set in Norman Rockwell backgrounds. As I enter the twilight of a life rich in the blessings of the Lord I count those moments as the most blessed of my life.
For those who would defile the sacred bonds of this religious affinity, I pledge an unending enmity. We have seen enough of Klan against Catholics, Liberty Lobby against Jews, hicks against Mormons. There are differences in every religion and I respect those. I have chosen my own and I pray that I have chosen rightly. I will fight to my last breath for those who have chosen to break bread with me.
My God commands this.
Merry Christmas and may God Bless.
MM