One of the things I noticed repeatedly, while I was back in my home state of Oklahoma last month, was how different I looked from most of the people I was around. One of the particular distinguishing marks was my footwear. Lace-up Hush Puppies or Bass Weejuns are my own personal preference. But the personal preference in Oklahoma is most definitely boots. Not just any boots either; but cowboy boots -- usually worn by men, but sometimes worn even by women. And, in this era when country music has become the most popular style of music in the nation, I think that more Oklahomans than ever are now wearing boots.
It finally got to me. And, on the last day my family spent in Oklahoma, while we were dining, appropriately, at a place called “Cattlemen’s Cafe,” I finally broke down. “Marilyn,” I said, “on our next trip out here, I think I’m going to buy myself a pair of cowboy boots.” At which Marilyn, who grew up in a more sophisticated part of the country, was almost speechless. “Why?” she sort of stammered out, after a long period of silence. “Didn’t you get enough of them when you were a boy?”
Well, my answer was “No, I didn’t.” In fact, I owned only one pair of cowboy boots during all my early years. Only one pair, because I knew the truth about those boots: I knew that boots were worn by cowboys.
Even more, I knew what cowboys really were, and what their lives really were like. Because, you see, in my family, cowboys were not dashing images on the silver screen. Instead, cowboys were real people. Cowboys were people I knew. Cowboys were people whose lives I knew -- and knew intimately. And I had no desire to be one. Not that I thought they were bad people. Not at all. But I knew what a cowboy’s life was like -- I had seen it up close. And it wasn’t the life I personally wanted to lead.
In particular, Granddad -- my mother’s father -- was a cowboy. Oh, as I was growing up, Granddad had long since ceased to be able to make a living as a cowboy. He worked first for the Rock Island Railroad, and then, in retirement, as a security officer. But, whatever he did for a living, and wherever he happened to be making that living, he always kept the cattle -- and the horses that were required to appropriately tend the cattle.
However, in his earlier years, he had actually made a living at being a cowboy. For years and years, until the railroads expanded and brought an end to it all, he had herded cattle up and down the famed old Chisholm trail -- out of the heart of Texas, up through the whole length of Oklahoma, and finally stopping in Abilene Kansas, where the cattle would be transported the rest of their ill-fated journey by train to the slaughter-houses in Kansas City.
Granddad was a real cowboy -- not the silver screen image or the drugstore- fake sort of cowboy, but a real one. And Granddad’s cowboy boots were never shiny and pretty. In fact, as I remember them, they were always dilapidated and run down at the heel -- always covered on top by a permanent layer of red dust, and on bottom.... Well, you really don’t want to know what they were covered with on bottom!
That’s what Granddad’s boots were like, because that’s what a cowboy’s life was like. The boots were rough because the life was tough.
And Granddad’s life never really changed -- even after he stopped trying to make a living by being a cowboy. Up until a couple of years from his life’s end at age 74, Granddad worked full time. And full time, then, meant eight to ten hours per day, six days per week. And, on the seventh day, he didn’t rest; but he put on the dusty, old, run-down cowboy boots, rode in a pickup out to a field he rented, saddled up his horse, and took care of the thirty to forty head of cattle that he always kept. Most of that time, Granddad received close to a minimum wage, made very little on the cattle that he sold, scarcely ever had a penny left over, and, on top of it all, had to watch my grandmother (the love of his life) die a long, painful death from cancer at age sixty-two. The boots were rough because the life was tough.
In fact, in my early years all I ever knew about Granddad was that tough side of him -- the personality that had grown tough to match the life. So I was very surprised -- astonished in fact -- at Christmastime, 1958. Mom had asked Granddad what he wanted for Christmas. And, among other things, he had told her that he wanted a.....Bible.
“A Bible?!” I said to Mom incredulously. “I’ve only seen Granddad in church once in his life -- and that was for Grandma’s funeral. Are you sure he wants a Bible?”
Well, yes, Mom was sure. And she asked me if I would be the one to give Granddad that gift. I agreed, began counting the pennies from my two dollar per week allowance, and finally ordered a Bible for him. It was out of the American Bible Society catalogue, I remember -- not an expensive Bible; but it was in large type, which Granddad was beginning to need at that point in his life.
On Christmas Day I watched Granddad unwrap his gift from me -- a bit anxious, since I still didn’t really believe that a Bible would be what Granddad really wanted. But my anxiety soon dissolved, as I saw his face brighten up into a great smile, when the wrapping paper came off and the Bible emerged.
On the following Saturday, I knew the gift had been right. As was his custom in his later years, Granddad got up early and headed down to Ratliff’s General Store -- where he would stand around out back with four or five other old cowboys, all in their rough, tough, old boots, and shoot the breeze. This Saturday, though, things were a little different. First, he asked me if I would like to go with him. And then, as we set off together, he picked up that new Bible, put it under his arm, and carried it with him.
When we got to the General Store, it was “business as usual” for a while. Each of the old cowboys rolled a cigarette, filling it with genuine Bull Durham tobacco. Then, a little “man-chat” ensued, mixed together with the latest spicy jokes each one of them had heard.
Then, though, something amazing happened: the agenda changed. Granddad pulled out his new Bible, and opened it up -- as a complete hush fell over that tiny group. And then, those five old cowboys, in their worn-out old blue jeans and dilapidated old boots, set to reading and discussing....the Bible! Well, maybe a better word for it is “arguing.” But they were talking about the Bible anyway -- which was a side of Granddad I didn’t know existed.
I think it pointed up this one salient feature of Granddad’s life: he may not have talked about his faith often; but, when life was tough, Granddad knew where he could look for strength. He had known all along, of course; but Granddad’s faith was a private sort of thing, and it was only when I was thirteen years old, that Saturday outside Ratliff’s General Store, in Chickasha, Oklahoma, that I personally first saw it. When life was tough, he knew where to look for strength....
When life was tough, Paul knew that his real strength was not in himself alone. Nor was it in things he might possess. Nor was it, ultimately anyway, even in the friends and disciples who surrounded him. When life was tough, Paul knew that his real strength lay in a friendship beyond friendship. He knew that his help lay in the inseparable bond between him and Christ. And the proof of that -- should any proof be needed -- was that God in Christ had sacrificed everything for him already. And who could imagine, Paul asks, a friend like that not sticking with you through thick and thin? Paul was a tough man himself. But, when life was even tougher, Paul looked to Christ for strength.
Back to the boots... As I’ve had time to think things over in the past three weeks, I don’t know if I really will or won’t ever get those cowboy boots that I told Marilyn I was going to buy. Because boots to me signify a tough life. And life can be tough enough already, so it seems to me, without adding the extra reminder.
But this I do know; and I celebrate it here with you this morning. I know that, when life is tough anyway, there is still strength to be found. I know that I can find it. I know that we all can find it by turning to that One of whose care not only St. Paul, and not only people with the last name of Schuller, but millions and millions of others through the years, too, have turned: that One from whom we all may be sure that nothing can separate us -- not death, not life, not angels or principalities, or things present or things to come; not powers or height or depth, nor anything else in all creation. I know that He is the place to find strength....even when life is tough. It’s not how you walk that counts -- not how tough life is that counts. But what counts is who walks with you, and whom you walk with.
Let us pray. Grant us grace to trust in you, O God; that we might find the strength we need, when life is tougher than we are able to bear. Through Jesus Christ, in whom you promise an eternal love and care. Amen.
