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Chapter 13: Corn and Sorrow

  “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold the selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge.” 2 Corinthians 7:10-11

  Somewhere west of the Run, Run, You Better River50, Luke and his beloved white horse came to the top of a sandy bluff and looked out at the wide world. It was kinda pretty. “I guess this is it,” said Luke. Horse the Mystery Horse (he thought this sounded more exotic than his given name Charlie) carried Luke gingerly down the hill, and across a little more grassland, and then they found themselves in a straw field.

  Luke was a pretty perceptive cracker, and he realized: “Hey, straw fields don’t get planted by themselves. We are on some kind of farm.” It turned out to be a ranch, actually, but they share a common theme.

  Towards the middle of the field, they came upon a young man suddenly. He was smiling knowingly, and wearing blue jeans, a white shirt, a gold watch, a brown hat, and some football shoes (Luke felt an instant sense of brotherhood) with a ubiquitous, intergalactic Swoosh logo. He looked familiar. “Unknown, and yet well known.” As though the twinkle in his eyes and the strength of his grip and the spring of his step and his sing-song heart represented a vision larger than just himself. “An archetype and an anthem,” Luke recognized instantly, the words leaping to him from his study of both literature and music. The kind of man Luke would follow unashamedly, in hope and loyalty. “Bertralamus Jefferson Loreword, at your service,” the youth announced slyly.

  “Hi. I’m Luke,” Luke said tiredly.

  “So you are,” the young man confirmed. “Welcome to the Rancho de la Raunchy Lawrence Ranch. What can I do for yis all?”

  Luke thought it over, and said at long last: “We are looking for the West. Have you seen it?”

  The good-looking young man crossed his arms in front of him, pointing both ways in a tangled-up Oz fashion as he scarecrow-imitated, sayin’, “Some people go that way. But then again some people like to go that way,” pointin’ crossways in the opposite direction. Then he dropped the charade and said straightforwardly, “But if you’re lookin’ for the West, son, this is it. You can go farther west indefinitely, but ironically enough you wind up in the East again if you do. Strange how life works like that. So at some point, you’ve just gotta say, Faa, far enough, and quit your walkin’ and come in the house and eat supper. And this is as good a place as any. We eat a lot of corn here.”

  “Great, I like corn. How ‘bout you, Horse?” Horse the Mystery Horse nodded Yeah-buddy, and the young man led them casually back to the farmhouse of the Rancho de la Raunchy Lawrence Ranch.

  Supper was all laid out for them, and there was plenty to go around, so Luke just had to rustle up a plate and dig in. The young man introduced Luke to his two fellow corn-eatin’ comrades, Peter Crowfoot and Lawrence. Lawrence was a gaunt old-timer with a mechanical arm and a shock of white hair. He kinda looked like Moses (except with less arms, fewer beards, and worse hygiene.) “He owns the ranch. He is a hard-workin’ old guy, but he doesn’t say much,” Bert told the newcomer. Peter Crowfoot was a slim and simple, silent ranchhand with three toes on each foot. “Hence the classy name,” Bert explained in hushed tones.

  There was no talking during dinner, coz the eating was imperative. But between dinner and dessert, Bert proposed a contest: “What say we all compose a three-way rhyme, to tell a little about ourselves, by way of introduction for the new guy? Whoever makes the best one, gets the last doughnut. I’ll even go first...” Then he tried to wow the judges with obscure references and wordy formulations, like a Golden Age poet:

  “I’m four parts Hoplite and one part helot,

  If the world is a mighty oak, I will fell it,

  …And if my life is perceived as a Hollywood adventure, filled with romantic trysts and intriguing plot twists, femmes fatales and shady characters, I want Ewan McGregor to play me when they tell it!

  Bert proudly interpreted their silence as awe, until Lawrence began roughly, “If that rhyme was a penny stock, I would…” He trailed off, coughed, and finished more charitably, “We should probably hold our applause until everyone has finished.”

  As Bert sat back down, Peter leaned over and whispered helpfully, “Last line has too many beats.”

  “Think so?” Bert’s lip curled into a semi-smirk and his fingers worked as he playfully pretended to count them.

  Peter Crowfoot stepped up next, began his rhyme mysteriously, and ended it somberly:

  “I’m one of the secret few who know

  How oats, peas, beans and barley grow.

  ...but I’d trade it all for a fourth and fifth toe.”

  Raunchy Lawrence took this sympathy vote strategy to a higher level, however, stating succinctly,

  “I’m not big on charm,

  But I sure know how to farm.

  ...Oh, except for that one time, when I lost my arm.”

  Wow, Luke didn’t know how to beat an entry like that, so he tried the other route, butter up the judges instead:

  “Putting all my values to the test,

  To gather wisdom is my quest;

  ...and of all the steaks I’ve tasted, this surely is the best!”

  They all had a good laugh at the good effort, but the doughnut went to poor old Lawrence anyway. Being a good winner, however, he remembered there was also still a box of oatmeal cookies in the cupboard, and he got those down for the other competitors.

  “So what brings you to these parts?” Peter Crowfoot asked Luke between cookie bites. “Tell us more about this quest.”

  Luke rolled it over in his head and then said honestly, “I was looking for God, I guess.”

  “In West Dakota? How novel,” Bert commented. “What made you think He lives here?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know where God is. So I figured this is as good a place as any to start lookin’. Besides, the Gnome told me that there was something special about the West, that might help me see things clearly and figure out where I’m going.”

  “There’s nothing special about the West,” Rancher Lawrence interjected, in a seventy-years-of-living-there-and-kind-of-disillusioned way.

  “Well, if you want help finding God, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Bert confessed. “Neither I nor my friends are experts in that area. We just raise crops and cattle and barns. Oh yeah, and I am a rather decent bowler (...always using the Lucky Purple Ball!) But we’re hardly authorities in things religious.” Peter nodded confirmation, gravely. Luke looked rather disappointed.

  Bert asked him curiously, “Say, what leads you to look for God anyway? Seems like most people I’ve met either think they already know all about God, or else they just plain aren’t that interested.”

  Luke reflected. “I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t know much, but my friends told me that God is the answer. I think they’re probably right--I know I’m missing something intangible and good.”

  Bert smiled knowingly, and supplied an alternate theory. “Indeed, you were missing something intangible, something beautiful, something we have to hold fast forever in order to be satisfied, in order to be ourselves! It’s called Freedom! Let me guess: you felt it slipping away as you started to get tied down to one home, one career, or one girl, so you panicked and set out looking for Freedom. Didn’t you?”

  “I…guess that sounds plausible,” Luke agreed hesitantly, thinkin’ back. “But if it’s Freedom I’m seeking, where should I look?”

  Bert the Young Man Lively laughed at the irony, and said slowly, “Son, you’re already there. How does it feel?”

  Luke thought about it, and realized that Yeah, he was pretty free, wasn’t he? And he kind of smiled as he thought back on some of his recent roamin’. “It feels great!” he decided.

  “Don
’t it?” Bert said smugly, reflecting on the best days of his own freewheelin’ lifestyle.

  Luke thought hard, and realized there was something maybe missing from Bert’s philosophy of life: “Um, freedom to do what?”

  “Anything!” came the answer. “Follow your heart at every turn, and you will be happy.”

  “Yeah, but my heart still has to decide what is the best thing to pursue at every turn,” Luke pointed out. “That’s what this search is all about: what is it that I should want from life? For what end should I use my freedom? What will bring my heart happiness?”

  Rancher Lawrence, the steadfast old man who looked like Moses, suddenly roused himself from his silent reveries to declare loudly, passionately and mysteriously: “The Sea!”

  Luke, Bert and Peter were taken aback, and fell silent. In the space, Lawrence continued on, while his companions listened intently to the surprisingly wordy lesson. (Bert and Peter had never known him to say much more than a gruff ‘Time to turn in’, or ‘Get those cows in, won‘t you?’, or, with what they could never tell was deadpan humor or grim irony, ‘I sure could use a hand over here.’)

  “The Sea, my friend! Whatever you seek, you will find it in The Sea. If you look for God, does He not fill the Sea? If you wish to find yourself, you will discover your soul’s reflection in her waters! If you look for the wisdom of the ancients, you will see that The Sea is ancient, and you will learn to hear her wisdom when she speaks! If you seek peace, you will come to realize that there is no peace--only the turmoil of constant motion and teeming life! Yet you will come to cherish the teeming. If you are looking for the love of a woman, you will understand that The Sea is like a woman: unpredictable, brooding, yet strangely comforting and with inexplicable beauty...And you will fall in love with The Sea, my son.”

  The three young guys weren’t quite sure what to say, so there was an impromptu dramatic pause, which seemed rather appropriate anyway. Then, after sitting there stunned for a spell, Bert pointed out, “Um, Lawrence? Aren’t you a rancher? When have you ever been to sea?”

  The old Rancher nodded slowly, not exactly sadly but rather pensively. He sipped his coffee and spoke in a far-away voice, to no one in particular. “The time comes, my young friends, when you must choose. You must accept your station in life, and honor God with your labor. I was called to work The Land. But The Sea still calls.”

  “Called by God?” Luke asked.

  The phantom trace of an imaginary smile flickered briefly. “By my father, at four o‘clock every morning. In this house they were co-equal in authority.”

  “And now you wish you had chosen The Sea instead?” Luke asked, trying to clarify.

  Lawrence pursed his lips and squinted his bushy-gray-eyebrow eyes, and said thoughtfully and honestly, “No. The Land has been good and faithful to me, and I have been faithful and good to her. I can honestly say that I have no regretssss...” (He hissed the word, dwelling on it, thoughtfully) “But no matter how sincerely I or anyone else may tell you that, we always do. No matter how satisfied we are, one always wonders... what was missed.” He nearly stopped, lost in memories... then cleared his throat and surged on.

  “But there are two types of regret, and it is important to decide which type you have. There is the sadness of not having done God’s will, and this is the great sorrow... But it is a sorrow which may yet lead you to do God’s will--and that is the great comfort! The other type of regret is, when you do the work God has given you, and yet you wish you had not. This is faithlessness, and is always unnecessary, and unproductive.” He paused to insert a disapproving Harumph after the last word. After this explanation, Luke looked a little comforted, whereas Bert, with a cough, just looked away.

  Lawrence carried on. “It is human nature to question, but...we should always remember that God is our answer, and so not to let those regrets overwhelm us! Does He not put us where He wants us to be? I still wonder what mysteries the Sea might hold, but I am more blessed in this--that God has allowed me to tend the land, to watch the thriving life that He constantly creates anew, and to help it grow and flourish. Sometimes salvation takes root slowly, with your hand upon the plough.” Lawrence paused for a moment, sipped his coffee, and looked at the glow of sunset through the yellowed windows of the weather-beaten log house, before saying slowly: “All I can really tell you is this… if God has called you to search, search carefully, search thoroughly, search thoughtfully...search lovingly. And when he calls you to plant, or to fish, or to preach, do each as earnestly. Meanwhile, the only way to find what your calling might be ...is to go and see.”

  Luke took the advice to heart, and promised, “I shall.” Then he cleverly suggested that maybe it would be easier to ‘search thoughtfully’ if he slept on it! The other fellas rapidly agreed quickly with this suggestion, because it was evening after all, and they were all tuckered out from a hard day of hard labor and a big satisfying meal. Plus, they were ever mindful of the fact that they would have to get up early-early-early in the morning to do it all again.

  They found a sleeping bag up on the shelf in the closet, and they set Luke up in the sitting room, (which was a misnomer in this case, coz who has time to sit around when there’s work to be worked and a ranch to be ranched?)

  Anyway, Luke fell asleep pretty fast, because he was especially skilled at it, and he was especially tired from crossing all those time zones on his trip west, and he was lying on an especially comfortable couch. The other guys went to bed in their respective bedrooms. Luke had a dream about a figure skater he had known at Hun State--an attractive transfer student.named Shillee. (Sparks had flown briefly between them, but she was too smart to get mixed up with a Hun). Peter had a dream where he was singing “Miii-ning for gold, mining for gooold!” as he tunneled through the snows of Baffin Island. Lawrence, of course, had a dream about The Sea. Then he had another dream, in which his favorite cow Bossy51 was being real stubborn, and he had to yell at her. He woke up in a cold sweat feeling stressed and guilty, until the reassuring confines of his messycomfortable bedroom smiled him back to sleep. Bert didn’t have time to dream, but took only a brief but concentrated, knuckle-down nap before getting up and getting dressed in the middle of the night. He was up to somethin’.

  Bert went into the sitting room where he auditioned the new man for his new role by giving Luke a literal kick in the side. “Hey. Get up,” he argued persuasively. Luke opened his eyes somewhat, and squinted at Bert in the dark ol’ night, and he mumbled sadly Wuzzup. Bert grinned and revealed: “It is time… (kick) to get… (kick) goin!… (kick) Prepare thyself. I will show you what Freedom is all about. I am a Master52.” He dragged Luke out of bed and into the barn. Luke protested a bit, saying tiredly, Heyshouldwereallybetakinofflikethiswhat- abouttheranch. Bert assured him that Peter C. was a hard worker, and that he and Lawrence would be able to handle it on their own. “Besides,” he pointed out, “I left a note telling him we went to Sea! Lawrence will be happy we’re living out his dream for him, I bet. One of those vicarious kinda phenomena. You heard him...’To find your calling, you have to go to sea’.”

  “Didn’t he say go and see?” Luke protested.

  “Knock-knock,” Bert replied, changing direction abruptly to keep his sleepy friend off balance.

  “Um.... Who’s there?” Luke finally played along.

  Bert changed the format again, from a joke to a riddle, annoyingly answering a question with a question for good measure: “What’s the difference between a conjunction and a preposition?”

  “Um, couldn’t tell ya,” Luke admitted, still drowsy, but now a little put-out.

  “So how’s a senile old man going to keep them straight then?” Bert pointed out. “But you heard all that stuff about ‘the Sea’. Brooding woman, blah blah blah. Yep. Go to sea. I’m sure that’s what he meant.”

  “So are we going to Sea?” Luke asked curiously, waking up a little.

  Bert laughed. “Who knows? Perhaps. That’s your first lesso
n of being free, son: always play it by ear.”

  “I play the guitar by ear,” Luke chipped in, willing to mend fences.

  “Attaboy,” Bert praised him, with a bona fide pat on the back.

  Then Luke saddled up Horse the Mystery Horse, and Bert saddled up Pony Meroni the Two-Legged Italian Wonder Horse. Pony was missing his right front leg and his left rear leg, from an accident with farm machinery several years ago--he had gotten lazy and decided to stop while plowing on a downslope, and the plow kept right on goin’ and ran old Pony over. It wasn’t pretty, but he had bounced back quickly because, (as Bert explained), he was “Elastic, Fantastic, and a Rock & Roll classic”.

  The boys headed west, in the nighttime, feeling slightly sleepy, moderately excited, and incredibly free.

  Round about breakfast time, they found a banana tree and had a snack of bananas.53 Then they rode for a couple more hours in the cool, casual, moist morning blue. After that, they took a nap, in the kind morning sunshine, lying in the grass. Life was good! And for a smooth, careless moment, freedom kicking in, Bert and Luke knew it: “Can’t fool me,” Luke said laughingly to life. Then he slipped into sleep, where his dreams were teased by the familiar silhouette of the alluring but elusive Libby St. Clair.54