We drive out to Sterling Nature Center.  Clear, blue sky.  Distant clouds.  I walk mom down the mowed path to the observation deck.  The lake is blue, appearing higher above the land than usual.

Two men have Family Life Network radio on under the pavilion.  I’ve made us a turkey sandwich wrap.  We look out over dragonfly pond.  Hard to ignore the two men, father and son, son with shirt off, a bit of late smoke rising from the standing grill, a bag of Kingsford charcoal.  Hungry? The father asked as we made our way up from the shade of the tree between the parking lot and the open barn-like structure of the picnic pavilion.

The Lord gives each of us particular gifts;  we are good at certain things, perhaps not others, the woman’s voice says over the two men’s boom box.  One, shirt off, as he sits in his folding beach chair,,corn on the cob.  Radio blaring,  the radio voice tells a story of making a sign, to be printed, shared.  “All about you.”  She tells a story of waiting for a flight in Indianapolis.  The CEO barges to the front of the line when boarding is called.

God helps us discern our work if we leave it up to Him.


But why?  Why the struggle of the city...  obscure, shunned almost, though that choice is probably of your own making.,  Even as you’ve welcomed so many strangers and friends to the wine bar with graciousness even if hurried, a magician.   The great Abe Lincoln decency you’ve shown to the multitudes, to the deluge.  Not put to more profitable use.

To the city person, what are you, in the estimations of guarded professional life secrets and income...

Some of us, God’s fools, double down on decent, servitude, humble kindness, and some of us double down on being greedy touch-holes.


John Wilkes Booth:  worthless urbanite.