|
 Sometimes
I get a “guilty feeling” about printing these stories in
Stuff About Things — especially when someone tells me they don’t
believe them; so I was delighted to find this one in the
February, 1947, issue of TRUTH IN LOVE, published in Alabama,
USA.
“In
the Southern mountains there was a family reunion. An old family
feud was revived. The offenders were brought into court, and the
judge questioned an old woman as to the particulars of the
fight.
“Well,
judge,” she said, “Jim Howard got into an argument with
Henry Gates. Henry smashed Jim over the head with a stick of
cordwood. Then Jim’s brother cut Henry with a butcher knife.
Dick Collins shot Jim’s brother through the leg. Pete Lilly
went at Dick with an ax. And then, judge, we just naturally went
to fighting.”
So
you see how little things can keep on piling up until someone
loses his temper and then, if the moon is right, things can get
out of hand.
We
sometimes see examples of this among brethren-- smashing and
cutting with innuendo— a jab here, and some half-truth there
— until finally “we just naturally go to fighting.” When it
really
|
|
gets bad, someone is sure to say, “I don’t
understand how this mess got started in the first place.”
I
like humor, and feel it has its legitimate place in life; but
humor can also be misused. “As a madman who casteth
firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his,
neighbor, and saith, Am not I in sport.” (Prov. 26:l8-19) It
is no joke to misrepresent, malign, and start fight among
brethren. We should learn to laugh at ourselves. It will keep us
humble, and ward off other darts.
But
some lead a rough life, and it takes a heavy blow to shake them.
I recall an Arizona miner’s wife who came to me for help when
her husband had beaten her black and blue with a hoe handle.
(She had heard my radio program, so she called me her “radio
pastor.”) I talked her out of taking out a warrant, then my
wife and I took her home for a reconciliation (Temporary) A few
weeks later she had shot her husband— then nursed him to
health.) As we rode out to her place she assured us she was a gentle
woman “and don’t like it a-tall when my boys shoot up the
living room.”
[Previous
Article]
[Next
Article]
|
