Stories +

There is a difference between disagreement and hate. Too many people call you a hater if you disagree with them or their lifestyle.  What you do once you identify a disagreement will show whether or not hate is present.  I have worked with and supervised people whose lifestyle I believed to be perverted, but I refused to treat them badly because of it.  There was always something positive about them if I would see it. Disagreement need not be a cause for hate. You do not need to agree on everything to treat each other kindly.

Dad told me about a one-eyed mule named Sal he had when he ran pack trains and herded sheep in Montana. He was running a pack train through some mountain country just after a great storm. Rocks were relocated. Trees were uprooted. Coming down a mountain trail Sal came too close to the edge of the trail on his blind side. He slipped and fell into a crater caused by an uprooted tree. Sal landed on his back. The pack saddle made things even more difficult.  Dad couldn’t pull Sal upright. Finally, he removed the pack saddle and tried some more. He told me that his cussing was creative that day. He still couldn’t get Sal out of the hole. After more than three hours he gave up. He didn’t have the heart to shoot the mule. So he left making his way to camp. As he was getting ready to feed the other mules he heard a commotion, galloping hoofs, and here came Sal. Cussing and pulling did not motivate Sal. But suppertime did.

Back in the nineteen thirties, a young man hopped a freight to take him to California.  The problem was that these were the days before modern trains. He crouched between cars as the train entered one of the tunnels in the mountains. Smoke and sparks flew from the smokestack. And it soon filled the tunnel. A lesson was learned that day.  As the train exited the tunnel a very grimy young man was beating out the sparks that had landed in his clothing. When sharing with an old hobo his experience, all he got was a chuckle and a question. “When you went into that tunnel where did you expect that smoke and those sparks would go?”

A young man I knew was at a party at which there was much drinking. It was a party of teenaged boys until a neighbor girl dropped in.  She was almost pass out drunk. It took little time for her to complete that journey. As she lay there several of the guys decided a gang rape was a good plan. The one man stood in the way.  He was no bargain so they hesitated to try to fight him about it. So there he was standing against six other guys. The group tried to convince him to leave if he didn’t want to join in. He knew that option solved nothing for the girl. He singled out the leader of the group. He let him know at least he would be in no shape for rape by the time he got to the girl. The leader told him that he couldn’t beat them all. So the young man raised the price. He pointed out that they’d have to kill him. Because even if they got past him He’d NOT let them get by with it. He would talk. Things had been sobering to the group and they were not ready for murder to get a little sex. The crowd melted away.

This is a true story. Sometimes the best deterrent for evil is not a program but the courage of a good man.

REMEMBER

There are millions of people out there working to make things better.