Being seventeen can be so fun...and so quickly go south! My cousin and I were cutting wood and loading it in pickups. It was a construction site where my dad's company was clearing the ground to put in streets, curbs, water lines, drainage pipes, and all the other services necessary for a new neighborhood so sprout. So our job was to cut up logs into smaller pieces, chop them into firewood, and haul them away.Did I mention this was before there were streets? The brush was cleared and fresh blacktop would be in place soon, but for now, it was just a lot of mud. The rain couldn't have helped our situation. My dad had suggested that we park the trucks near the road and then use a tractor and trailer to haul the wood out. But that would have meant loading it, unloading it, and loading it again. Somehow that did not compute in my seventeen-year-old mind.
But now the trucks were loaded with wood, and stuck so deep in the mud that they wouldn't budge. But hey, things happen. Dad would understand. Go to a phone, (Ya...no cell phones then!), call a tow truck, etc.
Nope. Never crossed my mind. My cousin and I, at my urging, hotwired an excavator and drove it down to the trucks. It didn't take long to get it stuck...all 25 tons of it! My cousin was quick to point out that we could still go make a call. I was like, "Are you crazy? We gotta get this thing out of here!" So I fired up an earthmover. Yep...a 35 ton behemoth with huge engines, giant tires, and lots of yellow steel!
Who could have known how powerless the earthmover was against the mud? Especially when chained to a "stuck-up-to-the-top-of-the-tracks" excavator! Trucks stuck. Excavator stuck. Earthmover stuck! Wow! Better make that call.
It got worse. As I was walking up from the bowels of mud hell, an Oregon State Policeman was waiting on me. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BOY?" he bellowed. Scared the mud right off my body. My dad and I have the same first and last name. He named our construction company the Don McLaughlin Construction Company. I never really had an appreciation for that lightning bolt of creativity until I showed the officer my driver's license! Actually, that little revelation got him laughing. In fact, he got quite a sadistic kick out of the whole thing! Maybe that is why he waited there with us until my dad arrived.
Ugh! It would have been so much easier to get unstuck if I would have called my father first.
Hmmmmm.
In many of the conversations I heard and had this week, some of us are a little stuck. But not all for the same reason. Some are stuck as we feel a little overwhelmed with the opportunity and responsibility to use a special gift to serve others. Some are little stuck as the generosity of one gift has hightlighted some patterns of selfishness. But as the week continued, there was a great sense that God is the author of this wonderful journey, and when we focus on him, we will get unstuck!
- Don McLaughlin
I don’t know about you, but over the last few weeks I’ve gained several new and different perspectives on the story of the Good Samaritan. For years I taught Bible classes and pretty much just encouraged kids to be the Good Samaritan. I’ve taught active compassion. So why am I surprised when those kids who have grown up actually practice active compassion?More than one time I’ve been driving to the airport in whatever city I lived in at the time, and I’d have my own children with me. Inevitably, there would be someone at a stoplight who looked really destitute, holding a sign up that said "Will work for food" or "Disabled veteran: Please help." As most kids are naturally inquisitive (and mine asked more questions than the average) I would be asked all manner of questions like, "What does the sign say?" "What does that mean?" "Can we give him/her food?" "Can they mow/clean/dust/ vacuum/pick up (or whatever the kids’ job was that day) for us? We can feed them supper."
Wow. If you’ve never tried fielding those questions from kids, give some thought to it. Kids get it that we are to have compassion and help those who are in need. What they don’t get is why we don’t practice what we preach.
Unfortunately, I’ve made poor attempts at helping and I’ve made no attempts at helping, and I’ve made plenty of excuses for both. When I look back at my track record, I think to myself, I’m going to try and do a better job of this.
Well, like Yoda the Jedi Master says, "Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."
I wonder when I crossed that bridge from not getting it to not practicing it.
- Sheree Yasko Hill
