Stuff About Things
Sometimes I get a guilty feeling about printing these stories in Stuff About Things — especially when someone tells me they dont believe them; so I was delighted to find this one in the February, 1947, issue of TRUTH IN LOVE, published in Alabama, USA.
In the Southern mountains there was a family reunion. An old family feud was revived. The offenders were brought into court, and the judge questioned an old woman as to the particulars of the fight.
Well, judge, she said, Jim Howard got into an argument with Henry Gates. Henry smashed Jim over the head with a stick of cordwood. Then Jims brother cut Henry with a butcher knife. Dick Collins shot Jims brother through the leg. Pete Lilly went at Dick with an ax. And then, judge, we just naturally went to fighting.
So you see how little things can keep on piling up until someone loses his temper and then, if the moon is right, things can get out of hand.
We sometimes see examples of this among brethren-- smashing and cutting with innuendo— a jab here, and some half-truth there — until finally we just naturally go to fighting. When it really gets bad, someone is sure to say, I dont understand how this mess got started in the first place.
I like humor, and feel it has its legitimate place in life; but humor can also be misused. As a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his, neighbor, and saith, Am not I in sport. (Prov. 26:l8-19) It is no joke to misrepresent, malign, and start fight among brethren. We should learn to laugh at ourselves. It will keep us humble, and ward off other darts.
But some lead a rough life, and it takes a heavy blow to shake them. I recall an Arizona miners wife who came to me for help when her husband had beaten her black and blue with a hoe handle. (She had heard my radio program, so she called me her radio pastor.) I talked her out of taking out a warrant, then my wife and I took her home for a reconciliation (Temporary) A few weeks later she had shot her husband— then nursed him to health.) As we rode out to her place she assured us she was a gentle woman and dont like it a-tall when my boys shoot up the living room.