Cardinal Meadows. Episode 5

"She offered me a cup of coffee and then most importantly eased my embarrassment by “taking me off the weirdo list”.

Lev 19:15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.

The throbbing headache from caffeine withdrawal subsided after a cup of coffee from the little trading post. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the house and drove down a few side roads to get a feel for the place. I was impressed at the nicely manicured apple and pear orchards that grew along the way and wanted to see more. After taking several zigzagging dirt roads, I’d gotten myself turned around and I wasn’t quite sure where I was. I’d passed a young girl that looked to be about eight or nine years old who was walking a horse. She'd waved at me as I passed. The road dead-ended. Turning around, some time later I came upon the girl a second time. She seemed too young to be of any help, but I slowed to a stop and leaned out the window anyway.

“Excuse me. I’m a little turned around. I’m trying to find my way to the main road.”

She didn’t hesitate for a moment, she introduced herself and gave me the directions for the simplest way back, she had even offered to ride ahead on her horse to lead me if it would help, but it seemed simple enough. I thanked her and pulled away. I was thinking to myself, this little valley seemed an odd little place. I was “East Coast.” Where I was from, courtesy was expected, but warmth? Came only after approval.

In less than a day I’d met three people- Spooner, Cindy and this young girl. And though I was a stranger, each of them had offered me a kindness. There was a slightly uncomfortable tug on my spirit. I had judged them, even before I had spoken a word to them. In less than 30 seconds I’d measured each of them up in my mind and handed down my verdict. I tried to reassure myself that I had the mind of a reporter, that I was only interested in the facts. But that was a lame cover-up. Facts? There were no facts. The facts were that I’d met Cindy at the store only yesterday. I’d noticed right off that she was pretty but wore a dental partial to cover some missing teeth. Immediately what came to my mind was attractive, but out of place and going nowhere, instead of being thankful that she’d taken time away from work to verify directions, and today? She offered me a cup of coffee and then most importantly eased my embarrassment by “taking me off the weirdo list”.

And next, Spooner. The long haired, sandal footed hippie with the beat up truck. My very first thoughts were, ‘What does he want? A 60’s throw back, lazy and worthless’. To my great surprise, not only had Spooner come to greet a new neighbor with a cold drink, but he insisted on feeding me and while not knowing me from Adam, basically volunteered to help me restore my badly vandalized home, with his materials no less. Then this young girl, ‘really too young to be of any real help’, offered to escort a lost stranger back to the main road. In my own bitterness over my personal situation, I’d tossed out common decency and judged these people with haste and prejudice.

Looking back, maybe it was more than writing those harsh editorials about my colleges administration that got me tossed out during my senior year. Though I'd misjudged the Christian seminary I'd attended as stiff and pious, the stiff and pious was me. At every opportunity I made it my personal mission to blast the school vocally and then editorializing my beefs in the school paper. I'd had a major log in my own eye while trying to do optometric surgery on theirs. The Dean of students saw right through my ranting and editorials. If they had been hypocritical, I'd been worse. I was unloving. And ‘where there is no love, there is no peace’. And as they say, it only takes a little yeast to affect an entire batch of dough. I had been spreading dissension. Religious Seminary was for those who wanted to make a difference. Not for those who had an axe to grind. That's why I'd been asked to leave. That's why I'd been forced into exile, to return home.

Had God used those four years in the basement to teach me something? Maybe. Jonah in the bible and I had shared something in common. Stubbornness and pride. To get his attention God had placed Jonah in the bowels of the great fish for three days, while I'd spent four years swallowed up in the bowels of a suffocating basement apartment. Four years verses three days? Maybe it was just that I was a bit more stubborn.