From Apples to Understanding

I'm not going to log my personal progress in a book anymore. I've done that for I don't know how long, enjoying the process of completing the program repeatedly.  It's been fun, but having done that, I'm moving along. I'm almost certain no one reads these anyway. I write because writing lets me think and see truth clearly.

Daily living is daily learning. Every day is personal progress, as we choose.

I woke up this morning to finding myself back in Tigard going on a daily autumn walk I  once took with my young Jennifer. My mother was visiting. The walk was bright with the sun's rays warming our cheeks as our feet scuffed, sometimes crunching fallen leaves. I can still hear the sound. shh, shh, shh.

I can still see the lines on the gray haired woman's face. As she smiled they accented her eyes and lips in upward strokes. The happy lines only made her look happier, and made me smile, too.
"Hello," my mother said.
Before I knew it we were picking apples with the couple. We filled their basket, small talking as we went. Ruth talked far more than Wally and Jennifer became a magnet of attention.

I was shy, and my mother had opened a door. I continued to talk with Ruth after my mother returned home to Florida. I sometimes took them baked goods or jam. Ruth shared her sweet/ tart juicy apples. Wally talked sometimes, and I loved when they would laugh.

Ruth and Wally lived right next to where I attended church. One day we were having a large activity that I thought they might enjoy. That day was a day of learning for me.

Wally was outside working on his old truck when I approached him. I told him about what we called "Trunk or Treat," an autumn fest where we had an autumn dinner, played games, and decorated our cars for kids to trick or treating car to car afterward. Everyone dressed up and the costumes could be just as fun as the event itself.

Wally thanked me. He said they've lived beside that church many years. He'd been impressed by how people carried themselves and dressed in their Sunday best, suits with ties and dresses. They seemed friendly enough, he said, but he would never go to church because he'd stopped believing in God years before.

The change in Wally was instant. He suddenly became somber. I wanted to know.

"What happened that made you stop believing?"

Wally took me back to roaring planes and the blasts of bombs. WWII. He was one that stormed the concentration camps, freeing Jews. He spoke of seeing walking bones through skin, piled up dead, stench of rotting flesh and painted for me, the grimmest of scenes I still remember, and I wasn't even there. Tears were blinding as he brought me to his world.
"A God would never let that happen he said, what kind of God would allow a whole race to be erased? "That's why I can't believe. What kind of a God would allow such horrific suffering?"

My reply to him came slow. "I don't know."
I told Wally I was sorry he had to see such turmoil, but that I was glad he was there to save these people. I thanked Wally for his selfless service and told him he was a good man. "No I'm not," he said, "but I wish my wife thought I was."

I remember well how I pondered that conversation, how perplexed I became thinking about this lost hero. This man who braved the scene of death and suffering. This man who killed the enemy to free the dying, freeing a whole people allowing freedom and posterity.  And this man who never overcame his own bitter enemy to find peace and understanding, healing and wholeness.

One day as I meditated on Wally and that day he rescued so many, and the barbarian display he witnessed, the answer came to me. I remembered agency. God does not take away man's agency, but when I remembered that truth to pass on to Wally, it was too late. Wally had already passed.

Today where Ruth and Wally's little home sat, grand homes now cover the grass. A tall wooden development fence now stands where their apple trees once stood. Every now and again, I drive by that place, the place where great people dwelled. With Wally and Ruth gone, the world still turns and days bring change.

Despite what the world looks like, and the changes that come, be they good or bad. I am reminded of one that does not change. He helps me combat my own sufferings in trial, and my own enemies in my personal weaknesses.

God, our Father is the same for ever and ever and I am grateful to know that this is true.  This morning I am smiling, reminded that Wally knows that now, too.

Copyright 2013 Lori Ries All Rights Reserved.