Out Our Way: The foolish woman - Proverbs 14:1

Out our way, one learns to listen to the wisdom of those who know what they are doing. It saves time and possibly some broken bones. Charlie taught me that when first approaching a herd of cattle that have been out on their own for a time, one goes slow and easy.

“Let them see you and get used to you before you try to herd them,” was his counsel. Range cattle — especially those that have not had to deal with people for a long time, can be a bit edgy and are easily spooked.

Back in Wyoming, at my first round up, a guy drove his pickup into the herd honking his horn and we had an instant stampede. Nothing like the movies, of course, but the herd split in 20 directions bawling and running and spooking each other. Granted they were not longhorns, just your basic Angus, but even so, there were only two wranglers on horseback and some 250-plus cow-calf units who were no longer a single herd but 20 or more groups now scattered through the sandhills of the Wyobraska ranch.

As I say, it was my first round up and in the movies and on TV I had always seen the cowboys racing beside the heard to the front and then turning the lead cows to get the milling. Sadly, the cows were not from Hollywood, and while I did race to the front — causing even more panic to the herd — and turned the lead cow without getting run over by the others, they paid us no mind and just kept running. Only later did I realize that if I quit chasing them they would quit running. Then I figured out that by walking “Blackie” to the front calmly, they would not spook. Then I was able to turn around and start doing a zig-zag pattern to urge the front of the herd to turn around and go back the way they came.

It took us several hours of slow and methodical herding to get the whole herd out of the brush, the various gulches, and back on the main trail down to the pens where the branding was taking place.

The strangest part of the whole mess was that the guy who foolishly caused the fiasco was the owner! When he complained about how long it took to get his cows branded, the old hands reminded him that he was the one who caused the delay and what could have been much worse. So when Charlie cautioned me about approaching a skittish herd, I listened. I had seen how being foolish could really cause disaster.

In Proverbs is the warning that “the wise woman builds her house while, with her own hands, the foolish woman tears it down.”

And this proverb is not just for the ladies, for the point is that the fool, regardless of gender, doesn’t use his or her head and think things through or consider the consequences.

In Wyoming, I was not only a pastor, but a member of the fire department and the ambulance driver. One night some young man foolishly rode his motorcycle without a helmet at twice the speed limit and attempted to do some stunt or other. He broke his neck, and while we were able to get him to the big hospital some 90 miles away where they stabilized him, the doctor told us he would be a paraplegic for the rest of his life. Instead of building up his life, he, with his own hands tore it down.

Lives of individuals but also families, communities, and even nations can be, and sadly often are, ruined by foolish behavior. Consider the present crisis in Venezuela, where the leadership foolishly followed the failed policies of Cuba. Poverty, disease and terror in what had been one of South America’s wealthiest and productive nations that now teeters on the brink of revolution.

And what about in our own communities and homes where foolishness in the name of political agendas runs lives? It is seldom reported but no secret that some factions in the U.S. Senate use their power to promote an anti-Roman Catholic agenda. Qualified judges who are Roman Catholic are being blocked and often rejected based on their faith. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech is no longer allowed on many university campuses, where in the name of “diversity” traditional values and opinions are censored and banned. If we lose our morals, faith and values as a nation, it will not be because outsiders tore the nation apart. No, we will be like the foolish woman who with her own hands destroys her own house.

And, of course, let us look at our own lives. What are we doing to ourselves and our own families? The number of single parent households, poverty, disease and crime rises where wisdom is rejected and foolishness championed.

It starts at home It starts in me. What am I doing or not doing that is harming myself, my family, my community, my country, my world? I don’t have the answers to the big problems, but I have the primary question that will help me answer the biggest one: Am I, like the wise woman, building up my house, or am I foolishly — and with my own hands — tearing it down? Nobody can answer that for me but me — and nobody but you can answer it for you. But we will never be able to answer it at all unless we are willing to first ask the question.

Blessings,

Brother John Bruington