Shade Tree Wisdom 2/26/11

Much depends on perspective, on how we look at things. I was reading about an American agricultural study group spending time in Europe. One Texas rancher met with a German farmer and asked, “How big is your farm?” The German told him it was all of a mile square. He asked the Texan, “and how large is yours?” The Texan told him “if I get in my truck and start at one side, when the sun goes down I won’t have reached the other side.” The German, not to be outdone, said, “I had a truck like that too once”.

It all depends on perspective.

The news last night reported that the father of Rachel Joy Scott, one of the girls shot in that Columbine tragedy several years ago, has been touring the country, addressing school staffs, administrations, and assemblies of students with what he called “Rachel’s Challenge”.

The challenge is to do a good deed somewhere to someone without asking or receiving any recognition for it. Such a good deed will be the start of such activity, and the end result will be a better world.

You may remember Rachel’s father spoke out at the time of the tragedy when finger pointing was at its height. He had written a poem that read:
Your laws ignore our deepest need,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what you need.

The world hasn’t changed since then. Just gotten worse, if anything, with unrest and uprisings almost everywhere we care to look. And my point is that simply saying do this in memory will not begin to fill the need.

It is really that change within that only the Holy Spirit can make that is what we need, is it not? St. Paul defines it in Romans 12,1.2. ”I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world.” When your perspective begins here, you are seeing correctly.

GPD 2/26/11