Christian of the Year

⚽ Our neighbors (Mary Beth & John) are great friends and for the past year have suffered some medical setbacks so my wife and I try to lend a hand whenever possible.  Last week John needed to cut his grass for the first time this Spring, but his John Deere riding mower refused to start.  I’m moderately good at working on small engines so I loaned him my riding mower, which is identical to his, while I investigated the problem. 

What I discovered was that since his mower had not been used for 6 months, the gasoline had evaporated in his carburetor and gummed up the little holes inside that let the gas escape into the engine?  So, I removed the carburetor, grabbed my air compressor hose, and with a few extra squirts of compressed air, cleaned it out. I reinstalled the carb, turned the key, and it fired up.  It felt good to hear that motor whirring away.  Total time to fix the balky engine was 3-4 hours. 

I returned the tractor feeling good that I had helped my neighbors.  A couple of days later I’m out in the front yard picking up pinecones and sticks and their daughter (Robin) is backing out of their driveway.  She pulls up to the curb beside me and thanked me for repairing her Dad’s lawn tractor and smilingly said, “I think you are a good candidate for Christian of The Year†and drove away.  I stood there watching her as she departed, thinking boy that was a nice thing to say.  I wondered if there was such a thing and shouldn’t we all strive to be that person? 

There are 4,200 religions in the world, and they can be categorized into five categories: Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism & Judaism.  So, pick your category and try to be a candidate for that “Person of The Yearâ€. In my opinion, your God wants you to be that person.  If you know someone that could be that person, tell them.  You know how good that made me feel 😊.

Mother Teresa said it quite tenderly “Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.â€Â 

âš½ Country singer, Charley Pride, has a song titled, “It Seems I’m Always Standing in My Wayâ€.  Sometimes, I feel the same way.  I have it on my list to clean my workshop, a big endeavor, and I constantly find other things to do, which at the time I feel is just as important, but I know they aren’t.  I need to get back to playing my guitar, but I tell myself at the end of the day that I’m too tired, so that gets put aside. 

When I look back over the last few years, I can see a pattern of my “Standing in My Wayâ€.  Perhaps, when we perceive a task as difficult, we’re inclined to find something to take its place, something much easier to accomplish.  I find that if I have a clear vision on the outcome of my endeavor, I’m more inclined to want to get that particular thing done. 

Consequently, the tough things get placed in the “undone†pile and stay there for a pretty long time.  The question is, how do I change that?  Well, I have decided to overcome that tendency by picking at least one difficult each week and staying with it until it’s accomplished.  So, next week my difficult task is going to be cleaning the workshop.  My wife made the comment the other day that she had never seen it so “messyâ€.  After I finish it, I will take her hand and lead her to it and boast loudly, “The workshop is clean!†(probably repeating it several times). 😊.

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Well done is better than well said,â€.

âš½ “Your dog only loves you because you have foodâ€.  I ran across that statement the other day and wondered if that were true?  We do not own a pet, but a lot of our friends and family do, and I refuse to think that their pets feel that way.  Growing up, my brother and I always had a dog, but they always got distemper (inflammation of nose and throat) and within a week would pass away.  We could not afford the distemper shot that was available at the pharmacy (15 miles away) and consequently our pets would expire.  I recall that Dad let us get two puppies from a litter of pups that a friend of ours had and I named mine “Pete†and my brother named his “Re-Pete†because they looked the same.  We had to keep them in the basement since Mom wouldn’t allow them inside our home.  In a few weeks Pete died, and sure ‘nuff, shortly thereafter Re-Pete did the same thing.  My brother and I told this “Pete & Re-Pete†story to all our friends, and they thought it was funny.  We were sad they passed but made the best of the situation.  Young boys can be insensitive at times.  Today, families spend hundreds of dollars to keep their pets healthy and treat them like family.  I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be done.  I have always believed that when our pets die, they go up and sit on a rainbow, waiting for us to pick them up on our way to Heaven.  Eight of them should be waiting for me.

Bertrand Wilberforce nailed it when he said, “Dogs are evidently intended by God to be our companions, protectors, and in many ways, examples.†    

âš½ Did you know that forty of the fifty world’s tallest mountain peaks are in Pakistan?  Knowing that little fact can help us understand how difficult our battles were in that war-plagued country.  I grew up in the mountains of southwest Virginia and our mountains would be rolling hills compared to Pakistan😊.  But as a kid, I always thought they were tall.  More than likely they are about one thousand feet high.  Mountaineers are a sturdy group, always going up or down a hill.  That builds stamina.  As a kid on my bicycle, it was fun racing downhill at tremendous speed, but the trip back up required a lot of energy.  I think the constant walking up and down hills, carrying coal in a bucket, and chopping kindling were responsible for the muscle core that made life easier for me throughout my many years on this wonderful planet.  Which reminds me that on June 24^th of this year I will complete 29,000 spins on this planet we all call home. I am looking forward to that very important day. I am aware that maybe I’m the only person you know that counts the number of earthly rotations they make.  Most of just count our trips around the Sun. I still enjoy my yearly trips back home to enjoy the mountains of my youth.  They haven’t changed a lot, but then again, mountains seldom do unless you take a bulldozer to them.  On top of one of those mountains, way up in a holler called “Clellâ€, is buried my great grandpa, “Pap†Hale.  I doubt his grave has been visited in 50 years.  I wonder if I could still find it. He was born in 1868 and died in 1961 and was very active up until the age of 90, thereafter slowing down considerably.  After that he mostly sat around reading the Bible and getting ready for his final trip. He never talked to us about his life.  I surely wish he had.

Chauncey Wright said so eloquently, “Looking from the mountains, I always think faster and freer and better, but about anything rather than the landscape.  It seems so much better to talk from the beauty than of it, but value it like meat and drink, the pure air and… my cigar, only for the excitement it gives,â€.  I especially like the part about the cigar😊.