Every once in a while I’m going to pull a post from the archives and publish it again. It may be one of my favorites or a favorite I’ve heard readers mention. So if you ever see a title pop up that has the word Revisited after it, you’ll know that it’s a re-post. (With a few edits.)
The teenagers didn’t know they were being watched. They didn’t know that, across the road, dark eyes were laser-focused in their direction.
All they knew was the intense concentration of lock-stepping across the practice field with feet thumping and legs pumping. They were in full marching band regalia, all eyes on the director.
A few hundred yards away, balanced on a rough-cut stump a young migrant worker was taking a break from his work of harvesting tobacco under a skin-scorching Carolina sun. He had seated himself so that he was turned away from the rows of dirt that made up the narrow boundaries of his life. He was turned toward the dream he had no hope of achieving.
As I hurried by on the road between the marching field and the tobacco field, I only had time for the briefest glimpse at the young man. But no second glance was needed to comprehend the look of naked yearning as he marked the progress of a hundred students preparing to march into the next football game and the next year of school. From there, they would disappear into a future brighter than the searing sun he sat under.
I imagine that most of those students had no idea how blessed they were. Sure, they had difficult homework, relationship issues, summer job concerns, and worries about scholarships and colleges. But those things they were viewing as problems were actually opportunities—opportunities they may not have given a second thought to.
The boy on the stump. The kids in the field. All of them at the same stage of life.
Most of them were marching off into a promising future–flags waving, horns blaring, hope held high.
But one of them?
One of them got up from his rough stump and trudged back into a future where each day would unfold exactly like the day before it. He had no flags to wave, no hopes to trumpet. Just an unblinking sun and an unrelenting harvest, and the bleak, sad sameness of a thousand days passing.
Without even knowing it, that young man preached to me a powerful and poignant sermon.
The sermon said, “Yes, life is complicated and challenging. It’s full of decisions, distractions, and unexpected happenings. But all those challenges and choices that sometimes make our days difficult are the very things that represent freedoms and opportunities.”
That young man preached one of the best sermons ever written, a sermon preached simply by the longing on his face for the basic blessings he may never have.
And he’ll never know that his sermon aimed itself straight at this middle-aged, middle-class woman hurrying by in her comfortable, air-conditioned car–-over blessed and under thankful.
It was a sermon I won’t forget, shared by a preacher without a voice.
A sermon on a stump.
What a great thing to revist old posts .I have a favorite I would love to see here . Sarah I think I was 11-12 and this post was about coming Across a dress in a market that just fit her perfect!
Katrina,
That is definitely a fave. I have something in mind already for the next one but will get to that one soon!
Good one! My aunt’s inlaws’ family farmed tobacco in Deep Run, North Carolina and my cousins always had to work there in the summer. I still remember all the tobacco fields between their different houses. My cousin could get me SO lost driving all those un-named dirt roads around the fields.
Sue Ellen,
Yes, I’ve heard you don’t know the meaning of hard work until you’ve worked tobacco fields under that hot, summer sun.
Unnamed back roads sound like the perfect recipe for lostness!
What a great idea to repost from the past! Thank you, Becky, for re-sharing this sermon. Your writing encourages me to see the silent sermons being preached all around us, everyday, if we open our eyes and hearts. Thank you for noticing the “preacher without a voice,” I see you as a preacher with your thoughtful, insightful words!
Ann,
Thank you for your encouragement. I guess there are many more ways to hear a sermon that just on Sunday morning. There are lessons and truths all around us!
Beautiful vignette. To add another dimension, in my little town, large farming county, the ones in the stump are flourishing from their hard work and opportunities. Their children have become the ones they watched “from the stump”. Whereas the futures of so many running out of the school have not panned out so well with the disintegration of families, failures of businesses, drugs, alcohol, inability to do the work available.
Catherine,
Loved that different perspective; thank you so much! Hard work and opportunities can take someone a long, long way from that stump.
This was an excellent post for re-visiting! We all need the reminder – especially two former marching band students who met on that practice field fifty-eight years ago.
Fred & Lucy,
I bet the post was extra poignant for the two of you in light of you being marching band students. So glad you marched into beautiful future together.
I remember this one and it struck me just as hard today as the first time I read it. Such a poignant reminder to be thankful and grateful and not take things for granted. I know I’m guilty of that. So easy to do.
I love that you’ll be revisiting some old posts. You’re so inspiring!
LeeAnne,
Thank YOU for always being so encouraging. I think I re-posted that particular article because I needed the reminder, too.
Happy Friday!
This so good, Beck. So true and a needed reminder to count my blessings.
The other week I went and read some of your “Best Of” posts from the archives. I always so appreciate the times when you dive deep in your writing and so poignantly lay out the matters of the heart and life. Such a treasure. Thanks for sharing one of those gems today!
Love, Deb
Deb,
Thanks for taking the time to leave some encouraging words. Some of those “best of” posts are the ones I’m going to feature in my revisiting.
I like your line, “so poignantly lay out the matters of the heart and life.” I didn’t know I did all that but I appreciate you saying it. 🙂
This speaks to my heart today…over blessed and under thankful (not just for myself but my children, my co-workers, my friends, etc…) We all have so much to be thankful for and I am thankful to you for the reminder!
Suzanne,
So glad the post was meaningful to you today.
I need that reminder every. single. day.
Thanks for your new idea, I love it and it came along just when I needed it! My sister and my niece both want me to crochet afghans for them. I ordered the yarn some time ago but couldn’t seem to get started on either of them. Yesterday my niece posted photos of the almost completed home she and her boyfriend will be moving into soon. So I started the one for my niece. It will take some time to complete, but the yarn is fat fluffy. Sometimes you just need something to happen to motivate you. My future issue will be to find a box large enough to send it. I will look for two of the bags that you suck the air out and hope that works.
It is finally warming up here and thawing out. Weeds are starting to sprout along with my allergies. I’m looking forward to working in the yard and planting flowers and vegetables when I am no crocheting.
Cindy
Cindy,
Glad you like the new idea; I figured those oldies but goodies need to be read again from time to time.
I admire anyone who can crochet. It seems like such a mystery to me. Enjoy doing all the things you love has spring makes its appearance!