Not that in respect of want I say it, for I did learn in the things in which I am -- to be content — Philippian 4:11
Charles Spurgeon, in talking about Philippians 4:11, quotes a proverb: Ill weeds grow apace. Discontent is like dandelions. Complaints are like crabgrass. If we are going to have a decent lawn or garden, it requires cultivation. We have to work to have beautiful flowers or fruits and vegetables.
Paul says, I did learn ... to be content. To be content is to be contained. The desires of the contented are contained by what they already have. Not everyone is, or should be, content at the same level, but we can all learn to create boundaries for our desires and to live within the restraints of those fences.
I think it was probably back in the late 1800's that a young man left the Ozarks and made his way to Idaho. He herded sheep for several years and saved all he possibly could of his wages. He wore the same pair of shoes the entire time, wiring the soles to the uppers as the stitching gave way. According to the legend, when he returned from the West, he left what remained of that pair of shoes, and someone put them in the window of a shop. He used the money he had saved to buy a decent little farm. Then he bought another, and another. When he was asked if he planned to buy up all the farms around there, he replied, "No, I just want the ones that join me." He was not a contained man.
It is also evident that our frugal shepherd was discontent in the horizontal dimension. The same Paul who was contained in a Roman prison had, in the same letter to his friends in Philippi and only a few sentences prior, said:
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus -- (Philippians 3:12-14).Though always readily content with his material circumstances, Paul was never restrained in grasping for more of Christ. And Christ, it seems, had all of Paul.
Probably the best way to be content these days is not to watch television or listen to that old-fashioned thing out of which advertisements constantly pour. Nor should we read magazines, especially the paper copies – if they still exist. I remember when Outdoor Life and Sports Afield were thick with stories and tales of adventure in the woods and plains and upon the waters. The last I saw of them they held no more virtue than Bass Pro flyers. Not that it matters, for Jack O’Connor and Robert Ruark have gone on that last longhunt, and barbarians hold the presses.
I suspect those who have learned to contain their desires must wonder at the accumulation and consumption that grips the rest of us. We compete with one another to have the latest or the most expensive or the most unique. We want things because of surface qualities – colors or shapes or styles. We buy things because they are “on sale”. There is nothing evil or sinful about having things. There is nothing sinful in enjoying shopping or buying gear or tools. God knows I have a shelf full of knives that alone would damn me to hell if that were the case. God asks only that we not invest love in the material. Have things; use things; do not grasp for the material or strive for it.
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)
11 comments:
How many times have
You heard someone say,
"If I had his money,
I could do things my way."
But little they know
That it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind.
Rick, on Winter's Bone,
It's not an easy movie to watch, and it's not Gran Torino or something like that. I initially told my wife that it was almost like science fiction. But it might be better to think of it as kind of a fairy tale. Fairy tales often have grotesque and gruesome elements, as this certainly does -- and not just the climax. They are skinning deer. They skin and gut a squirrel on screen.
One of the funnier points are all the junk bass boats lined up in the weeds. I can see a similar scene just a couple of miles up the road here.
Some of the stuff is exaggerated -- at least I hope it is, but there are elements that reflect the hillbilly ethic, you might say.
You never send anybody away from your door without giving them something. My mom never gave anybody a joint for the trip home, but she did make sure they had something. Hospitality is very important, and it's almost formal. For Mom and Grandma, it was second nature, and I never noticed it except by its absence in my urban wife.
There is also a strange pride that goes beyond merely not taking handouts. Not everybody, in the old days, could make it here. Not everybody could be a hillbilly -- probably nobody but an idiot would want to be, but it was still a point of pride. It's like the pride of a New Yorker in knowing how to get around on the subways and where to find the best delicatessen, or a southern Californian who knows the best way from Long Beach to Simi Valley.
“The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
Indeed, and amen.
Really nice post, Mush.
"I remember when Outdoor Life and Sports Afield were thick with stories and tales of adventure in the woods and plains and upon the waters. The last I saw of them they held no more virtue than Bass Pro flyers. Not that it matters, for Jack O’Connor and Robert Ruark have gone on that last longhunt, and barbarians hold the presses."
We're on the same wavelength. I just (re)started The Nick Adams Stories. Been too long since I read them last.
Anyway, I'm hoping that with so little of this good writing being made that it just makes the little all that more "valuable". When I saw my son fall in love at first sight the other day over something as small as the first line of Inferno, that gave me hope. I didn't even "notice" the line like that, and I was 45 when I first read it (last month? :-)
Maybe the fishermen of the future, when they dig up my writing they will feel that way about it. Right before they eat me.
Re Winter's Bone, it didn't seem that unrealistic to me. But that just proves we can't really know what it's like say, to imagine what it was like to live in this or that past. I've seen people make that argument about war -- that even films like Saving Private Ryan are not right (as in morally). Because the writers/actors know there lives are not at stake. I try to keep that in mind in my writing. You, Mush, are authorized to write about what you "know" of the Ozarks.
I liked those scenes with the bass boats too. And the junk cars everywhere. You know, there's quite a few places like that here. It is a different world if you travel only 5 or 10 miles north of the CT coast. It can get pretty spread out. Old farms.
You know, I was wondering about that scene when Thump's wife gave Ree the cup of something to drink. Nice detail. That might be more universal than we think. Sounds like something my grandmother would insist. And my mother.
I think I understand that pride. I wonder if pride is the right word, because it sounds close to a virtue.
Speaking of eating, the guy who plays the cop creeps me out for good I think. He plays one of the cannibals in The Road. Something about the way he stares.
Nick Adams -- now I'll have to see if I can find a copy. I haven't read those since the late 70's or early '80's.
You're right -- hospitality may be more generational than regional.
Since you mentioned the sheriff, that standoff on the road is probably a little unusual now. But back in the late 1920's when my dad was still a reckless, very reckless teenager, he had to go stay with his oldest brother in Colorado. He'd had a little trouble in Missouri. His brother made moonshine, and they lived a lot on game there in the mountains. One day Dad was out hunting with an 8mm Mauser when a game warden rode up on him and started asking him questions.
Dad told the game warden he was hunting rabbits, and the game warden thought he had a little too much gun. Dad didn't think it was any of the game warden's business what gun he used. The conversation went on, and the warden was still on his horse.
Finally he told Dad that he needed to give up his rifle. Dad said he wasn't about to. The game warden started to dismount saying that he was going to take the rifle.
When a person pushes the safety off on one of those classic Mausers, the sound is loud and distinctive. Dad said the game warden heard the safety click, paused for just a second, swung his leg back over his horse and rode off.
In Dad's defense, he was really still just a kid, and his big brother was a pretty bad influence on him. I guessed we shouldn't have laughed at the game warden's discomfiture, but we always did.
Mushroom, you are right on with this one as usual! I have been praying this phrase this year: "Lord, help me to use things and love people, and not the other way around." This was just one more confirmation and encouragement along the road toward that end. Thank you.
Thanks, Cliff.
That was a great scene in the movie, Mush. I have to say I've never seen anything like it. Not the standard Hollywood recipe. Yet it seems so plausible.
In the county where I grew up, even today, the sheriff is a good ol' boy. The communications are much better than they used to be, but still, a lot of times the patrol officer is alone and 30 minutes from backup, at best, on some of those backroads. It's not implausible.
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