running life’s race with a limp – Page 3 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

July 17, 2015August 28, 2017

Shotguns and Soda. Delayed candor

To my regret when I deceived I deceived on purpose. But I didn’t usually scheme much in advance. Not always. Things would simply happen and it was then I schemed. And deceived. Typically to avoid consequences over some foolishness.

Richard Nixon’s after-the-fact scheming made the term Cover-up famous. But I appreciated the concept well before Watergate days. My dad’s sun-visor question provoked for me a scheming diversion on the spot – Maybe a bale dropped. . . A shotgun blast gave rise to a cover-up that required less scheming.

16 Gauge Buckshot (2)

Let’s go chase down a rabbit.

Our mother cooked the best fried rabbit dinner; her green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy perfected the meal.

Tim gave the summons. Bearing the shotgun with care, he led the way. Passing through knee-level pastureland, he and I scanned the bermuda before us. Soon a Cotton Tail leapt from the grass. Taking speedy hops before Tim could aim and fire she bounded into a sanctuary – a pile of discarded lumber and tree branches. We devised a plan. I slipped around to the other side of the tall heap of rubbish to flush out our prey. I was out of Tim’s view. Our excitement over a great rabbit dinner may have clouded our judgment.

Balancing on my better foot I attacked a tree branch with the other and shouted, Out of here Rabbit. Out! The rabbit darted into Tim’s view.

I heard the gun-blast, felt a burning pain above my left knee and heard my own scream, all in one alarming moment. I seized the injured leg with both hands and went to my knees. The pain lessened and when no blood appeared my panic eased.

My poor brother came into view, bounding over a log. His face was colorless. Tim gawked at my hands, still in their tourniquet pose. I unfastened my blue jeans and inspected the area above my knee.

Two bluish-red welts.

A few buckshot from the blast had ricocheted – only two of them finding me. They resembled BBs and lacked the speed to break the skin.

The rabbit escaped.

Tim and I suspended our hunting for a later date – taking care to consider the matter of gun safety. And we schemed. That afternoon, in a simple collusion of silence. Nothing concerning this particular hunt – nothing – would be shared with anyone. No one.

After a few years we volunteered the account to dad. Meanwhile we killed, dressed and – trusting to our mother’s kitchen graces – ate our share of rabbit and squirrel.

Confessing is best made earlier than later. That said, confessing is good. Period.

When I was fifteen I stole and drank an orange soda from another school’s canteen. Three or four of us guys slipped into the quiet room off a deserted hallway. Un-chilled soft drinks sat in crates stacked from the floor. We each opened a bottle and downed its lukewarm contents. Yuk.

No one spotted us.

The infraction haunted me. After several days of misery I found a pen and paper.

I am writing to apologize for taking an orange soda without paying from your school’s canteen recently. I am sorry. Enclosed is payment for the drink.

The stamped envelope bearing no return address left with our postman that morning carrying a ten cent coin and my unsigned note. Sodas cost a dime in 1962, and I lacked the courage to identify myself.

Confessing is best done when the offender has a name. That said, confessing remains good.

My conscience was quieted and my dishonesty limp was lessened. I felt I walked a little straighter on the inside. It was a good feeling.

Still, character-growth school for me remained in session. I had a good way to go.

Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. – the Bible. Book of James, Chapter 5

August 6, 2015August 28, 2017

Baptized

And now we welcome two brothers – the Lout boys – to the waters of baptism. Our lady minister, dressed in white and smiling, beckoned my older brother and me. Sister A was standing in a cattle pond fifteen feet from shore.

The foreman of the ranch attended our church. In summer months he supplied this venue for those ready to be baptized.

Sister A adjusted her position, steadying her bare feet on the pond’s floor. She stood waist deep, was poised, looking elegant. She noted our approach while pondering the dignity of her office. Considering her bearing Sister A might just as well be performing the sacrament in a cathedral.

Tim and I waded forward. Our understanding of baptism’s actual significance – at least my understanding – was limited, shallow as the waters hugging the pond bank. Our church didn’t always articulate clear reasons for certain practices. To comply. This was seen as the purpose of doctrine. Love God and do what he says:

Jesus was baptized by John.

Followers of Jesus get baptized.

You go under water and come up again. Like Jesus in the Jordan River.

This, for the most part, summed up our tutoring. And, given we were Pentecostal, I vaguely caught that some people experience the Holy Ghost at the moment of water baptism. Without irreverence I wondered. Will I to talk in tongues when I come up?

Nearby, a mama cow bawled.

OK, Tim. Now squeeze your nose shut. Tim complied. Facing him, Sister A placed her palm at his back, the other on his chest. She shut her eyes.

Now, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, I baptize you. She invoked the divine titles while lowering Tim beneath the water and returning him upward. The small gathering of witnesses, our parents included, smiled their approval. The minister caught my eye and nodded. I stepped forward. The ritual was repeated.

I remember thinking this was a good thing that had been done to us. I also remember wishing we could remain longer – make further good use of the pond, swim around awhile.

Being baptized under the open sky in a setting familiar to a farm boy left me with a pleasant memory. My joy over the occasion, however, came years later. Wise and caring believers opened Scriptures to me on the rich theme of water baptism. The beauty of identifying with Jesus. It was belated joy but still joy.

Tim and I brought our dripping bodies to shore. Our parents received us. Mother extended a towel. We got into dad’s ‘51 Ford.

Our thoughts shifted from pasture and pond to mother’s kitchen. The roast in her oven would be ready now.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism. . in order that,

just as Christ was raised from the dead. . we too may live a new life

– Romans 6. Bible

July 30, 2015August 28, 2017

Head over Hooves. Counting

Dad was plowing a fifteen-acre piece of land. He signaled me to his tractor. My horse responded to the bump of my boot heels and started a gallop. Dad assigned me a small errand back at the house.

In TV Westerns famous cowboys labeled their horses imaginative names like Trigger and Silver and Scout. Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger and Tonto mounted their amazing steeds and went after the bad guys. When Dad brought our fifteen-year-old gelding to the farm, we had little choice but to stick with the horse’s original name. Bill.

Minutes after leaving my dad I lay writhing, half-delirious in our barnyard lot. I called out, distress in my voice. And pain. My leg felt it was on fire.

Bill had gathered himself from the fall and stood wide-eyed nearby. He was perhaps reviewing in some horse-like way the scary experience of moments ago. A momentary quiet settled over me – my fourteen-year-old mind barely in touch with my surroundings.

In a way that seemed somehow comforting, my nose took in the sharp, raw smell of cow manure. Another burning pain shot through the leg. My shouts broke the calm. Moments later I was hauled into a pair of rescuing arms.

My brother-in-law, ten years my senior, was at our farm. He ran toward the sound of my screams. Inspecting me and ruling out any broken bones, he gathered me up. Soon my grubby frame, smelling of horse sweat and trampled hay, lay on the green couch in our living room. I had survived. I never learned whether the length of rope my dad sent me to fetch made it to him. I accepted that simply surviving could, on this day, count for something.

Counting for something. The phrase speaks to a peculiar drive inside us – regardless our limp. Counting for something seems to run in the life blood of people everywhere, like a part of a spinal cord that has to be in place for the thing to work.

When I review my life to the present it’s a patchwork. I’ve passed through bare survivals and radical recoveries. I’ve let curiosity lead me into places both delightful and dreadful. I have been overtaken by joys and overwhelmed by sadness.

On the day at the farm I had been on a mission, though not a spectacular one. I hadn’t suited up in space gear to be launched toward the moon. Neither had I donned wet suit and fins to conquer the English Channel. Still the task given me was one that needed to be acted on. By doing so – faithfully – I could enjoy something of actual worth. Beyond mere usefulness, something with meaning.

Being present for the benefit of another human being – in this instance, my dad – this held meaning. It counted.

Thankfully not all of life’s happenings are grave, or profound. Some are, in fact, profoundly funny. I am thankful for this. Still, most lives are visited by scraps of drama and snippets of mystery. An assortment of insights and even some hints at wisdom are in such places. For the finding. Sometimes all that’s required is some reflection.

It is wonderfully true after all. Everyone counts for something.

July 28, 2015August 28, 2017

Tractors. Dangers. Interventions

Unaware of the mini-cliff lying just ahead I drove the tractor right for it. Squeezing the jostling steering wheel, I moved at a good clip. And was clueless to any danger. The Farmall I steered was a large machine – even to a grown man. And I felt very grown today. It was my first solo drive on a tractor. I was thirteen.

Satisfied of his tutoring session with me of minutes before, Dad had directed me to slow the tractor. He stepped off the vehicle’s draw-bar and followed by foot, leaving me to it. I had accelerated, stretching the distance between us. Tall grass obscured the ditch up ahead, which I failed to consider was even there. The tractor was headed straight for the ditch. With me aboard.

Suddenly a breeze caught my dad’s whistles and shouts. The sounds were faint, fighting their way as they did above the competing noise of a tractor motor.

Muddled, I half-swiveled on the seat and looked back. Dad was a blur of action – like a physical trainer and Olympic sprinter morphed. Arms swinging wildly, he ran with everything. All the while shouting, Stop. Stop! Clearly this was urgent.

My right shoe found the brake pedal and pushed vigorously. Dust swirled near the big tires. I killed the noisy engine and a deep quiet took over. It was only then I actually surveyed the scene, taking in the cause of my father’s alarm. My eyes widened. The Farmall stopped only feet from the bank’s edge – barely short of me tumbling headlong into the creek bed. A chill shuddered through me. Then a compelling thought began overtaking my brain, and my emotions.

I think my dad just saved my life!

A friend and his wife raised eight children. He collected pithy statements on the way. Some I believe he coined himself. One of his sayings, The foolishness of youth that only age cures.

Our farm tractor collection numbered three. Always frugal, Dad bought a tractor only after it gathered a lot of miles. In plowing fields. Hay meadows. Or working wheat harvests.

We kept one squatty Allis Chalmers and two sizable Farmall H’s.

One of our Farmall’s, perhaps that same one, featured in another life-threatening incident.

Following a Sunday dinner another young fellow visiting our home joined me for a squirrel hunt. We dismounted the tractor near a wooded area. .22 rifle in hand we scouted nesting spots but without success. The day was warm and we shuffled back to the tractor. Climbing aboard, I settled into the driver’s seat and my new friend sat atop one of the big tires. Facing me, his feet rested on an axle. The rifle lay across his lap. After a quarter hour of killing time I started the engine.

Absentmindedly, I shifted into forward gear and released the clutch – forgetting that the boy still sat atop the big tire.

Memory retention is heightened when crises happen. I remember visual details of the elevator into which I stepped when hearing of the shooting of President Kennedy. An image no less vivid imbedded itself in my mind that Summer afternoon on the farm.

Thrown forward to the ground, the boy was on his back. His body – in the path of the advancing tire – faced upward toward me. In a fetal position. The sole of his shoe was inches from the hovering tire tread. He held the rifle crosswise, extended before him, as though it might restrain the thousand pounds of tire and axle coming down on him. It can be unsettling even now – revisiting the what if questions that nagged me more than fifty years ago. What if my reflexes had been too slow?, What if the brake hadn’t engaged ?. . .

Again – supernaturally it seemed – a shoe finding the brake pedal; a vigorous push. Once again, stillness. And pondering.

When spared the horror of toppling a tractor and myself over an embankment I pondered with some emotion, My dad just saved my life.

In this later near-miss, I consider another Dad. The ultimate one – intervening. Often with us unaware. In our challenges, our heartaches and mess-ups. The Intervention Dad. God. Abba. Father.

Pondering, ‘Dad saved my friend’s life being taken – and saved me from taking it.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. – New Testament. Ephesians 3

Thank you for reading. It would be great to hear from you. Is there a good ‘intervention from your life? Something meaningful that this or another story has prompted for you? Comments welcome.

July 14, 2015August 28, 2017

Sharp Road Surprise

“I’d be okay if you’d get your shoe out of my mouth.”

The Studebaker pickup lay on its right side – the two uppermost tires slowly spinning.

The poor headlights had failed to alert the inexperienced driver (me) in time. The sharp bend in the gravel curve took me by surprise (the road was named Sharp Road for a reason). I braked hard, swinging the steering wheel leftward. In the time it could take to say mishap I capsized my dad’s hay truck. It lay there immobile, like a roped calf waiting for the cowboy to bind its legs.

My heart and head churned. I slowly exhaled. His saucy tone aside, my friends’ response comforted me. David was okay. I wriggled up and out the driver-side window. David followed.

Without comment we scanned the shadowed form. Crouching beside the vehicle we grabbed hold, unthinking. Adrenaline took over and power beyond that of our boy-man bodies kicked in. In a moment it was over. The tires bounced once. Shaking still, I wondered about any telltale damage along her faded blue side. But the pickup sat erect under the night sky and that was the main thing. I turned the ignition. It fired and we drove away. With our latest experience. And our secret.

Next evening at supper I scrambled for a response to dad’s offhand question. I’d been dreading such a moment. He directed the question casually to my brother Tim and me.

Would you boys have an idea about the sun-visor on the Studebaker? The visor was metallic, fitted to the outside, above the windshield. Since the previous night on Sharp Road the sun-visor featured an obvious new dip along the passenger side.

Tim – able to honestly plea ignorance – looked puzzled.

Following a pause I attempted a detached tone that I hoped would convince.

Maybe a bale dropped onto it when we were loading hay from the barn loft.

The answer seemed to satisfy my unwary dad. He would learn of his overturned truck when I broached the topic years later – when the risk of forfeiting my driving license was long past.

Deception (Merriam-Webster) – the act of making someone believe something that is not true; the act of deceiving someone.

Character flaws display themselves in different ways. Generally – thanks to values my parents and other responsible adults drove home – I was a fairly honest kid growing up. But my deception limp surfaced periodically, no question.

A missing soda, an unapproved relationship, a shotgun episode.

Other demonstrations of a flawed character.

I needed help.

July 23, 2015August 28, 2017

Shepherd Find

George’s old sedan churned dust as it entered the meadow. Dad’s hay-baling equipment broke down occasionally and he called on the hired fix-it man to lend aid. These and many other details converged in the haying enterprise – centering on one aim. Feeding our small herd of cattle through the winter months.

To my knowledge, nothing of the sheep family ever grazed on our property. Perhaps the nearest to that happening was my purchase of a goat years later. I fattened it up on the old property in advance of my son and his bride’s wedding. Their rehearsal dinner featured nyama choma (Swahili for ‘roasted meat’).

The terms sheep and shepherd found their way into our thoughts, however. And often. Even into our prayers. My family’s church culture introduced intriguing words and images like this. Stories to do with sheep and their shepherds drew our family to fondly consider attributes of God. We learned of his nature and of his disposition to us his children. In view of these things, our dad reflected on the blessings that came his way, his good fortune.

A principled man, Clyde Baxter labored for the well-being of his family. The dream of securing employment drove him to ride the freight cars westward. Clyde married Thelma only after establishing himself as a steady wage earner with a stable future. Life carried uncertainties as in every generation. He understood this and stayed focused.

Linking his work ethic to his modest ten grades of schooling, Clyde excelled in the plumbing craft. In the late 50’s he launched a business in Okmulgee. City Plumbing.

His love for rural life stirred. What if? So dad moved his shop to our eighty acre place a mile from town.

Get up, boys. Time for Sunday School and Church. Throughout the busy years Dad did the best he knew to do in affording us a moral and spiritual footing.

Doing so he sensed that his abilities to labor, to plan and to provide rose out of a greater influence. He knew he was not a self-made man. He entered into and drew from a source far greater than his human ingenuity could supply.

The grown-up orphan was humbled. He knew he was fathered. And shepherded.

Dad was reserved. His prayers were private. In my growing-up years it was sounds of my mother’s intercessions that drifted from their room. Mother petitioned the shepherd. When we gathered at mealtime, it was always mother praying our food.

My child imagination resonated with images of a good shepherd. I saw Jesus as shepherd. But more. Jesus was good shepherd – giving his life for the sheep. From my earliest years exploits of a giant-slaying, lion-crippling shepherd boy grabbed me. Then each October Sister Opaline selected Christmas Play characters. I thrilled at arriving for practice one or two seasons cast as a shepherd. A long crook staff in hand I saw myself as a kind but commanding presence. Protector of the defenseless.

Shepherds watching their sheep by night. Wow.

Through vivid Bible scenes I saw Jesus walking away from a gathering of safely-kept lambs and ewes. In the dark it was me the good shepherd went looking for. I was the strayed sheep. I saw myself lying helpless in a distant ravine, wolves prowling nearby.

One Sunday morning in a Bible story time I was invited to welcome the good shepherd into my life. He laid down his life for me, a helpless sheep. Guided into a simple prayer by my teacher I eagerly opened my heart’s door.

Jesus came. His Spirit entered me in his mysterious way. Through simple faith. God was my shepherd. The good shepherd.

Today I know him in a wider range of wonderful titles – Savior. Friend. Teacher. Brother. Comforter. King. Father. Naming a few.

As a limping, sometimes straying sheep, I cherish him still as I first came to know him.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want Psalm 23

July 21, 2015August 28, 2017

Greenwood Lake. Rescue

My father and mother lost their first son to drowning.* Given such trauma I am thankful for the courage they showed later on. When their next two boys reached swimming age.

Tim and I loved water. If it were roomy enough to swim in we weren’t picky about the spot. Mom and dad freed us to that pleasure. . .

Farm ponds and rivers – summertime could find us and our friends reveling in them. The deep blue of rain-filled rock quarries called us. Their depths were bracing, invigorating. At the bottom of one quarry rested a long-abandoned dump truck.

Years before, it somehow descended from the quarry ridge. It rested submerged there now – still upright. What fun, inhaling deeply, diving, navigating the cab interior. Taking turns we mock-drove the old truck until straining lungs obliged us aloft to draw in new oxygen. Then back again, chasing one another through one open window and out the other.

Our favorite swimming hole by far was a pond-turned-commercial pool. A few years earlier, a visionary gentleman at the edge of town added diving boards, changing rooms and a snack canteen to his large pond. A brilliant revenue source, his family’s Greenwood Lake opened for business. It seemed every kid in Okmulgee County frolicked in Greenwood at some point before reaching their late teens.

A lifeguard pulled me from the Lake unconscious early one season. My headfirst dive might have fractured my neck. Thankfully not. The accident sprang from a miscalculation.

Swimming season was freshly opened. The winter months and springtime yielded little rainfall and the shoreline revealed it. Not factoring this, I assumed the lake owners had extended the shoreline – providing a new beach area.

I trotted onto a platform leading to diving areas further out. Stopping short of the diving boards I turned and faced the water.

In previous summers the water here was several feet deep. Being a pond, the cloudy waters kept me from seeing bottom . . . from judging its depth. There wasn’t a new beach. Greenwood was simply low. I dived into water that was inches deep.

I woke up on the grass. The lifeguard was at my shoulder. An onlooker remarked, That kid was lucky, looks like he’ll make it. Minutes later I swam from the shallows to join my brother and our cousin. Aunt Dovie’s son, Paul, was visiting us from Phoenix.

Our life’s trailways hold curious mysteries for us. At times they may link us to something – someone – beyond ourselves. I like to think a benevolent God ensured that an on-duty lifeguard was attentive – ready and alert to rescue this inattentive youngster at Greenwood Lake. I believe the same Creator gently prompted my Aunt Dovie to be attentive – on-duty in Phoenix years ago after the death of Bobby. Dovie intervening for my mother and father with words of rescue. Of life.

July 8, 2015August 28, 2017

Fight to the Finish

Mother, Mother! Tim’s getting clobbered!

Sprinting through the front door I blurted the report. My mom’s face conveyed both alarm and puzzlement.

Tim? Fighting?

My brother survived the fracas. But the image itself seemed crazy. A Samurai Wrestler in a delicate ballet twirl would be more probable. Today’s incident was a thuggish brute who happened to spot a random kid – who happened to be my brother. And pouncing.

Actually Tim did fight. Not in this way. He fought throughout most his lifetime, and with valor.

Tim’s actual fighting was about goodness. Indeed, Tim fought to be a good person. To those near him, though, his struggle toward goodness appeared to be hardly a struggle at all. He breathed goodness. So it often seemed. For me, his kid brother who more typically breathed mischief, this was disconcerting. Once our dad suspected us of cigarette smoking and approached me about it.

Do you boys sometimes smoke?

Mm, well, I think Tim might. Mischief.

But I idolized my big brother. We were little when I overheard mother say to a friend, Tim doesn’t eat tomotos. . . He also dislikes coconut and, Oh yes, pineapple. This was intel enough for me. If Tim shuns these things there is good reason for it. Mom could mark them off her grocery list.

I did acquire a taste for all three foods later in life. Once I sampled them.

To whatever measure they may have troubled him, Tim went to war against impoliteness. Rudeness and discourtesy. Years after our childhood days I heard him say to his Bible class, A practice in our home is to reserve the phrase ‘Shut up’, for only addressing the dog.

I admired him. I envied him. And I was ticked with him. Why did my brother need to be so stinking pleasant? And compliant?

Detecting goodness in him was fairly easy. Not stuffiness, though. He wasn’t Goody-two-shoes but was loads of fun. With a year and a month and a day separating our ages we did a lot together.

One of the things we did, we climbed things.

We climbed trees. Pear trees, Pecan trees, Willow trees. I watched Tim fall from one.

He fractured a wrist and his reconfigured forearm held me hypnotized the whole way to the hospital. Though clearly hurting, he handled the ordeal well. In the 1950s a bone fracture was a big deal. To set his arm the nurse put him under with ether-soaked cotton. It set in motion a bout of serious vomiting. He was miserable and didn’t make a fuss. No whining. Not a complaint really. I was impressed. Wow.

In our teen years Dad introduced useful outlets for our climbing zeal. He referred us to the steering wheel of a farm tractor. We climbed aboard. And many times thereafter.

Hay season found Tim steering the big red Farmall. He towed a mowing piece to the meadows. Once cut, the grass lay under the July sun to cure. My squatty orange Allis Chalmers required bailing wire to keep the shift controls in second gear. A multi-pronged hay rake followed behind the Allis. Once I raked the long grass into windrows, Dad wrapped up the process. He drew the grassy aroma into his lungs. Then guided his equipment to finish the baling operation for that meadow. Winter feed for his small cattle herd.

Tim and I kept climbing. Livestock chutes at the rodeo grounds across from our farm. Perched above the bull pens, we adjusted our straw hats and rested our chins on the heels of our open hands. Like the ranch-men did at the animal auctions. What fun – up here with my big brother. Adjusting our position, we surveyed the grown-up wranglers practicing their calf-roping.

We didn’t tire of climbing. The two of us climbed onto the back of Old Bill. Riding horseback meant free entrance to our annual Rodeo events – even if riding double.

The most thrilling climbing was to the top of Greenwood Lake’s High Platform. Well above the water surface the platform reigned. It overlooked the diving boards further down. Greenwood – beloved pond-turned-swimming hole at the edge of town. And the platform. Stationed behind my brother I looked down and shivered. Tim was standard-bearer. If Tim was gutsy enough to fling himself out over the waters from way up there, well. . .

My brother Tim and my sister, Betty – each influenced me toward good. They conveyed wisdom. Unconsciously at times. Each brought significant insights my way at some crucial times. One of the harshest – and most helpful – statements I took in as a kid came at me through clenched teeth. Tim’s.

During an especially obnoxious stage of my teenage years Tim shocked me to sanity. Or at least to consider it. Annoyed again by my asinine antics he abruptly turned my way. He had it with me this time. His voice levelled.

You know, Jerry, you’re a punk. That’s what you are. Nothing but a punk!

His words seared. Like a hay hook going in. Tim had rebuked me with good cause at other times. But this is the time I remember. Following the correction I assessed, as well as I might, the words, nothing but a Punk. I resolved to work hard. At changing. First, I realized punk-behavior mode when I saw it. Until that rebuke, I hadn’t seen it – really seen it – in myself. Years later I reminded him of the strong medicine he dispensed that day. Tim didn’t seem to recall it. We laughed.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend*

He was the best of brothers, the best of friends.

*Proverbs 27

Timothy Arthur Lout August 28, 1944 – July 6, 2010

June 23, 2015August 28, 2017

The Matter of Sister Opaline

When the Sun-glint from her brace caught my eye that Summer day I wondered. About Opaline and her story.

When yet a toddler her body was attacked by the same disabling illness that redirected my own world. For Opaline, however, the impact was evident; dramatically so. Not for months, but years.

In short-order polio wrenched strength and mobility from her lower limbs. Rigid braces received her feet and legs, more or less imprisoning them there. And – like a prisoner whose parole date is postponed – the waiting lengthened. Then lengthened further.

The shiny hip-to-heel fixtures lent support through one elementary school year. Then another, and yet another.

Every morning she rose and called up the ritual – maneuvering each foot into a special shoe. She fitted the cold steel and leather padding about her dormant limbs. At nightfall young Opaline reversed the process. Detaching the braces, she leaned further forward. Then she manually lifted her legs onto the bed.

Lying motionless Opaline sometimes wondered. What would normal movement be like? Running? Dancing?

But this girl was unusual. She carried something within. Resolve. And a zest for living. Ironically, like a distance runner, Opaline entered the Marathon of Life.

Nothing, it seemed, could sideline her. The theme song of her journey could be, “Life’s an adventure. Bring it on.” She matured, completed high school, then college. Friends in our church community regarded her warmly. Smiles typically greeted her when she approached. Neither the crutches nor the braces mattered to anyone. She was Sister Opaline.

Sister Opaline, Sunday School teacher .

Sister Opaline, Vacation Bible School director.

Sister Opaline – High School teacher (her “handicap-fitted” car carrying her to waiting students in another town a distance away).

Sister Opaline, Christmas Play director. . .

Delightful Opaline.

She owned her personal imperfections. Opaline looked to encourage others – especially the younger others. Parading either gossip or whining into Sister Opaline’s presence proved mostly futile. Her knack for winsomely shifting subjects was magic. She mined for the best in people. Her naiveté about human nature was flagrant (though no-one accused her of being naïve).

Wherever she seated herself, Opaline’s crutches lay at the floor or leaned at a wall nearby. Her underarm muscles suffered from bearing much of her body weight over the years. Still, her face easily sprang into smile. The smile seemed visually fragrant like a rose coaxing a passerby to inhale.

Sister Opaline – Spouse. In a marriage with challenges and hardships of its own.

Our church minister and the common people who worshipped together strove to trust the Bible and its message of God’s big love. And of his available power to bring healings, even miracle-healings. As a nine-year-old, with the aid of crutches, I walked from a hospital. This was weeks after being gravely ill – and after a doctor predicted I would not walk again. And after prayer. By all accounts, through simple trust in a loving healer, continued believing prayer played its role in my astonishing recovery. Was this triumphant faith? To the church family there seemed no doubt. God touched me. Radically so.

And yet there was the matter of Sister Opaline. Would she soon have her miracle?

At a particular church service one Sunday evening I watched keenly, hopefully.

The gangly movements of my Angel-lady comrade entered the center aisle. And moved toward the altar. She was a little over five feet tall. Her smartly-groomed auburn hair fell an inch or two above her shoulders. Beneath the shoulders, the ever-present crutches. They bore her along, steadying the balance of a lady hardly a hundred pounds in weight.

Opaline positioned herself in the prayer line.

July 2, 2015August 28, 2017

‘Arch enemy.

klip-Thump – klip-Thump – klip-Thump.

My shoes mocked me. I never thought a set of footwear could mock. Or embarrass. Or harass. But in the world of a self-conscious adolescent they could. And did – with an impish tinge of spite.

The worst places by far were school hallways.

The polio virus had sent me to the hospital after I started Fourth Grade. Released months later I resumed my schoolboy life.

I’ll never forget my first day back to school. How awkward it felt, keenly aware no one but me was bumbling down the hallway with a pair of accessories called crutches. When time came to retire the crutches I was overjoyed. I felt like skipping, and on the inside I did.

I was probably the most self-conscious kid in the history of Wilson Elementary – and afterwards of Preston Junior High. The crutches were long gone but not my limp. Nor the reason for my limp, and that aggravating klip-Thump mantra.

The culprit was the arch of my left foot – rather the absence of an arch.

My first polio bout left me with this keepsake – a left foot with a diving-board-flat arch, and non-functioning tendons. I had nothing to give the foot lift. So the left shoe didn’t know how to step – only to flop or Thump to the floor. My right foot, by contrast, was arched especially high, like a startled cat. So the contradicting sounds my shoes made when crossing any surface was striking. Efforts at treading softly were futile. To my anxious introvert-ears the klutzy sounds of my cadence still sounded – with embarrassing annoyance.

It strikes me as humorous sometimes now – my shoes and me. Our perpetual, private shouting match of those years.

KLIP-THUMP!, KLIP-THUMP! – “shouting” upward from the hallway floor at me. Me scowling downward with a silent retort, Just SHUT UP!

My high school graduation ended all the years of limping self-consciously through school corridors. It was then I started seeing it. I was surprised. And more than a little embarrassed.

I had wasted a lot of time looking down.

Today I try to remind myself (when my lazy left foot catches and sends me into a clumsy stumble or the like). Obsessing over my deficiencies serves a purpose. But not a noble one. It shifts my attention from the All Sufficient One to my pitiful, inadequate self-sufficiency. It leads me to choose anxiety over peace. A really bad tradeoff.

It seems our most paralyzing afflictions aren’t necessarily the physical ones. Indeed, a lot of my limping – my unbelief-limping – issues out of paying attention to concerns that are really of no concern at all.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. – Psalm 23