Think Small
My father thought of small things. He thought of grains of oats. Every year, some time before it was fully spring, he kept a handful of oats wrapped in a wet paper towel in a glass jar, on top of the china cabinet in the dining room. Maybe it was a nice warm place to keep them. And I would watch him, after lunch, reach for that jar and unroll the paper towel and see. He showed me the sprouts growing their way into the folds of the towel, soon to fill up the jar, like pale green promises of a summer of fullness.
Who knows why I thought of playing in the back of the truck parked in the big shed across from the barn, on that summer evening? There had been so many times when my sister and I, too short to see over the side, had boosted ourselves over the open tailgate. So I reached up and pulled the latch.
The oats were part of what we fed the cows. Not taking as much time and worry as the alfalfa, or so it seemed, but there they were, filling the bed of the truck. And I pushed back as hard as I could. But two trails of them dropped to the cement in little piles, leaking out of the not-quite-closed gaps on either side of the tailgate.
I could have run away, and let them spill on the cement floor, the floor that smelled of cold and grease, even in the summer evening. It would have been after supper when my father and the hired hands were busy in the barn with the evening milking, the whine of the milking machines and the radio insulating them from everything outside. And there I was alone, the only one to hold back the mistake I had made. And I held on. Stuck between, not strong enough to push it back and crush the few unlucky grains caught between the tailgate and the side of the truck bed. Stuck with guilt. Stuck in a place too big for me.
So I held on, bracing my weight against the tailgate, first with one foot then another, pushing against the heaviness of my arms, until there was no thought of anything else and my life had become the truck, and the oats that must be saved, and the smell of cement and grease, and the faint sound of the milking machines in the barn across the yard. Until the milking was done, and my father came to push the tailgate closed.
All it took was one quick shove and it was done. And never mind the few grains crushed in the effort, or the piles that could be scooped from the floor. My father had come to make it right. But the guilt still hung in the damp air, even as the blood crept back through the veins of my fingers. And the bigness of what I had done stayed on me, and a chafing thought grew in my mind that my father had not done it right, had taken too long, hadn't seen how hard I had tried. And the thought of it made me run from the shed to the house at the opposite end of the yard.
Think small. Think of the too big places our Father has rescued us from, and the way we chafe at His hand, like He hasn't done it right, like He doesn't understand or care, like He owes us. And think of how it makes us run away.
Who knows why I thought of playing in the back of the truck parked in the big shed across from the barn, on that summer evening? There had been so many times when my sister and I, too short to see over the side, had boosted ourselves over the open tailgate. So I reached up and pulled the latch.
The oats were part of what we fed the cows. Not taking as much time and worry as the alfalfa, or so it seemed, but there they were, filling the bed of the truck. And I pushed back as hard as I could. But two trails of them dropped to the cement in little piles, leaking out of the not-quite-closed gaps on either side of the tailgate.
I could have run away, and let them spill on the cement floor, the floor that smelled of cold and grease, even in the summer evening. It would have been after supper when my father and the hired hands were busy in the barn with the evening milking, the whine of the milking machines and the radio insulating them from everything outside. And there I was alone, the only one to hold back the mistake I had made. And I held on. Stuck between, not strong enough to push it back and crush the few unlucky grains caught between the tailgate and the side of the truck bed. Stuck with guilt. Stuck in a place too big for me.
So I held on, bracing my weight against the tailgate, first with one foot then another, pushing against the heaviness of my arms, until there was no thought of anything else and my life had become the truck, and the oats that must be saved, and the smell of cement and grease, and the faint sound of the milking machines in the barn across the yard. Until the milking was done, and my father came to push the tailgate closed.
All it took was one quick shove and it was done. And never mind the few grains crushed in the effort, or the piles that could be scooped from the floor. My father had come to make it right. But the guilt still hung in the damp air, even as the blood crept back through the veins of my fingers. And the bigness of what I had done stayed on me, and a chafing thought grew in my mind that my father had not done it right, had taken too long, hadn't seen how hard I had tried. And the thought of it made me run from the shed to the house at the opposite end of the yard.
Think small. Think of the too big places our Father has rescued us from, and the way we chafe at His hand, like He hasn't done it right, like He doesn't understand or care, like He owes us. And think of how it makes us run away.
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