Weekly Thought – April 23, 2024
Fred kept an Albert Einstein quote in his office: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Fred loved the beauty of “how things work.” His fascination with machinery was well known to his family as he found his own solutions for mechanical problems around the house. Fred rarely watched TV, and never sat through a movie. These words are unusual, indeed… but helpful.
Conversational Simplicity
One night as I was going to bed Mary Alice had an old black and white western movie on. In it a taciturn thirtyish farmer marries a woman who is dying. The farmer promises to raise her baby boy. As she was dying he told her he wanted to build her a three room home with a porch where they could sit and rock under the hackberry tree. He did take the baby boy and raised him with a single dedication.
I was taken by the simplicity of the man, his singleness of purpose, and his absolute commitment. There were no psychological arguments in his life. He took the boy to raise; he accepted her death; and he buried her. These people required very little conversation because their commitment was total, simple, direct, and all-consuming.
It is hard to verbalize the elegance of the man when he told a dying woman of the house plans. His comment to the crying baby was, “I’ll raise you good if it takes every breath in my body.”
The simplicity of the conversation was part of the man. He would say “howdy” without embellishment. In the film his conversation was never more than two or three words… certainly made it easy on the script writer! One of his longest sentences was to the growing man as he enters manhood. “When you grow up I’ll buy you a gun, and we’ll shoot chicken hawks together.” When the man died, one of the other farmers said, “We never knew how much love was in him.”
The farmer said things simply, not feeling he had to justify or rationalize or make himself look good by his conversation. Much of urban conversation is impressing, embellishing, and striving for attention. Most talk to impress, not express.
The truth simply spoken is a brilliant jewel in an elegant Tiffany mounting… understated yet always appropriate.
Contrary to my challenge to others to stretch their experiences, the simple farmer in this movie built a significant life through the purposeful dedication to his son. The lessons he taught that young man probably equipped him for a good life. He knew the value of communicating beyond the limitation of words.
This week think about: 1) How careful am I with my words? 2) Who do I know who speaks little but says much?3) What commitments have I made that have changed my life?
Words of Wisdom: “We should talk to express, not impress.”
Wisdom from the Words: “A time to rip, and a time to sew; a time to keep silent, and a time to speak.” (Ecclesiastes 3:7 NET Bible)