Out Our Way: Who? Me?

Out our way, you meet some unlikely folks pushing cows — and the most unlikely of them all was yours truly. A mediocre rider at best, even with gentle ole Doc, I managed to get bucked off — or was it I fell off? — with alarming regularity. “But that’s how you learn,” my saddle pard, Charlie, told me. Kids raised on horseback learn early and get their bumps and bruises while young and supple. Old guys who start riding after 60 are a different matter. Learning for us is a harder process — and who wants such greenhorns working bulls, cows and calves with them? Well, Charlie did.

I recall when Charlie first asked me to come along and work Tiger Ridge with him one afternoon. He supplied the gear, horses and transport. How badly did I do? As I recall Charlie had to redo my cinch and adjust my stirrups that first time — and he did so without an ounce of regret for having brought me along. “Comedy Relief?” Not, ole Charlie. Nope, just a good-hearted man willing to take on a rank amateur and teach him a few things.

More surprising was, despite my bumbling ways, Charlie invited me to join him again and again and again. In time I did get better. I could saddle a horse, set the stirrups, manage to pull the barbed-wire gates so as to slip the wire off and open it … and then reverse the process and close it up again. But it took time. Was there ever such a rank beginner as me over the age of 10? I have my doubts — but time and time again, Charlie would pull up to the Church house with his pickup, big red horse trailer and load my saddle in back with his — and off we’d go.

I won’t say I was ever a competent cowhand, but I was learning and after six years was at least at the point of some use to Charlie and the brand we rode for. I pushed bulls alone — Charlie let me chase strays and run them back to the herd without his help, and he trusted me with the herd to keep pushing them while he rode over the ridge after strays he had somehow spotted on the other side. Yup, of all the wannabes out there who wanted to try their hand at being a cowboy, Charlie picked me. And before he died from the disease that crippled and then took him, he asked me to come to his place where he presented me with an “Outback” range coat and his hat. I wore them both to his funeral and when folks noted the hat was too big, I just said, “I don’t care!” I still wear and cherish them — and am still in awe of the fact that Charlie chose me to ride with him.

As I read the passage about the calling of Levi — also called Matthew — in Mark 2, I feel a sense of connection to that tax collector. Working for the Romans, he was considered traitor — and most were corrupt. Yet Jesus saw him at his counting table and called out to him to come and be a disciple. And I can only imagine Levi saying, “Who? Me?” And Jesus nodded and smiled at him just as Charlie did when he called me to get in the truck and push cows with him.

I don’t know why Charlie chose me, but the scripture tells us that Christ chose Levi because Levi was worth saving. “The healthy don’t need the physician — but the sick.” A reminder that Christ came for Levi — and for all of us — because we all need him. Levi is a reminder to us that not only do we all need the Physician — but no matter how sick we may be, there is still hope. The Apostle Paul considered himself the worst of sinners and in his youthful pride he committed atrocities and sins he could only shudder to recall. Yet on the Damascus Road “the Physician” came to him and called him to follow. Like Levi, Paul — then Saul — could only gasp: “Who? Me?”

I wonder if at the end — or actually the beginning — when I take my last breath if Christ will come not with a band of angels, but with an old pickup truck, pulling a horse trailer — open the door and beckon saying “Get in and let’s go.” And when I consider all my stupidity and foolishness and other sinful aspects of my nature gasp, “Who me?” Christ will grin like Charlie always did and say, “Yup. Get aboard.”

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Brother John Bruington and Doc plan to remain with you guys’ til “Charlie’s truck” pulls up to the porch, but sometimes things get hectic around the place. I apologize for failing to get the column to you last week and will truly keep trying to get it out. It ain’t much, but a few of you write now and again to let me know you enjoy it. And I enjoy writing and remembering the Tiger Ridge and Charlie.