he made the Lord seem …
so real … after a long pause
he just said amen
Re-reading … well, listening to the audio book as I drive to work, the book Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Burns, I was again struck by the bit of dialogue between the hero, Will Tweedy (Yes, this is where I got Boy! Howdy!) and his Grandpa when Will has a near death experience after being run over (he lay low in the tracks) by a train.
Ms. Burn’s writes, picking up the story here where Will has told his Grandpa what happened – (The dialect is rural Georgia, to the east of Atlanta of the early 1900’s):
With the way he took it so casual, and the relief of getting it told, I felt like I’d been stuck back together. But one thing worried me. “Grandpa, you think I’m alive tonight cause it was God’s will?”
“Naw, you livin’ cause you had the good sense to fall down ‘twixt them tracks.”
“Maybe God gave me the idea.”
“You can believe thet, son, if’n you think it was God’s idea for you to be up on thet there trestle in the first place. What God give you was a brain. Hit’s His will for you to use it—p’tickler when a train’s comin’.”
Resting my chin in my hand, I thought about that while Grandpa finished up his pie. I felt awful tired. “Sir, do you think it was God’s will for Bluford Jackson to get lockjaw and die?”
Grandpa spoke kindly. “The Lord don’t make firecrackers, son. Hit’s jest too bad pore Blu didn’t be more careful when he was shootin’m off.”
“You don’t think God wills any of the things that happen to us?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?”
“Mama and Papa think He does.”
Grandpa licked some meringue off his fork while he pondered.
Finally he said, “Life bullies us, son, but God don’t.
He had good reasons for fixin’ it where if’n you git too sick or too hurt to live, why, you can die, same as a sick chicken.
I’ve knowed a few really sick chickens to git well, and lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin.
Still and all, common sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if’n he’s in the way.
If’n you’d a-got kilt, it’d mean you jest didn’t move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog.
You think God favors the dog over the rabbit, son?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t neither. When it comes to prayin’, we got it all over the other animals, but we ain’t no different when it comes to livin’ and dyin’.
If’n you give God the credit when somebody don’t die, you go’n blame Him when they do die?
Call it His will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don’t die but once’t?
Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if’n we can.
Hit ain’t never His will for us to die—cept in the big sense.
In the sense He was smart enough not to make life eternal on this here earth, with people and bees and elephants and dogs piled up in squirmin’ mounds like Loma’s dang cats tryin’ to keep warm in the wintertime.
Does all this make any sense, Will Tweedy?”
They’s a heap more to God’s will than death, disappointment, and like thet.
Hit’s God’s will for us to be good and do good, love one another, be forgivin’….”
He laughed. “I reckon I ain’t very forgivin’, son.
I can forgive a fool, but I ain’t inner-rested in coddlin’ hypocrites.
Well anyhow, folks who think God’s will jest has to do with sufferin’ and dyin’, they done missed the whole point.”
Grandpa had made the Lord seem so real, I wouldn’t of been surprised if he’d said good night to Him. But after a long pause he just said a-men.
Finally he said, “Life bullies us, son, but God don’t.
Well anyhow, folks who think God’s will jest has to do with sufferin’ and dyin’, they done missed the whole point.”
No Haiku For You 