I, as any farm boy would, had a dog. Don't tell my wife, but he was my first love. I was going through a homosexual phase which apparently I haven't gotten over quite yet. One day, I couldn't find him. I eventually found him mired with mud in the wet spot that was at the end of the lane that led to to the cow pastures. Though still quite young, I knew what this meant. It was another reality of life and farming that I didn't like. Animals got bit by rattlesnakes and did what was in their nature to do to heal. I wanted to take him out of the mud and get the veterinarian but my dad who had just gotten there said that Rusty would have to make it on his own. It was too late for a veterinarian to help him. I stayed with my dog until the mud and his spirit couldn't resist the poison any further.
When I returned to the barn, my dad went to get a shovel so we could bury Rusty right there. I won't share all the details of this experience but suffice it to say, there were tears involved. The next day, I made a cross from a tree branch and placed it there. I never did ask Rusty if he was a Christian, we didn't talk about things like that much. I just assumed he knew Jesus.
It took awhile to get over feeling the hurt. I passed that spot a lot. The cross didn't last long but the pain did, even after I had another dog. The farm provided more emotional hurts and even some physical and spiritual ones. And it wasn't even that big of a farm to begin with. But it was my first context for learning about healing against the dying. Yes, at that age, I had figured that one all out.
Okay, maybe it took a few additional contexts to get it down pat. Luckily, life was going to provide them for me. And along the way, I saw a lot of folks who were having the same experiences. As Gilda said, "It's always something." You learn that no matter the hurt, you needed to heal, one way or the other, just to go on. Sometimes a bandage would do but other hurts needed forgiveness and reconciliation. For many things, only time helped. But just when you got used to the never ending reality, you were hurt worse and repeatedly so. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
That was where things started to get complicated for many in various ways. Not knowing what to do. Not wanting to do anything. Not knowing that you needed to do something in the first place. To put it simply, you ended up with a bunch of stuff that manifested itself severely or mildly, immediately or over time, directly or indirectly. But regardless of exactly how it affected you, the dying was moving in and there was no healing to be had. And the periodic unhappiness became permanently horrendous.
I passed this place several times in my wanderings on the plain. I never did know what it was exactly, but I assumed it to be an early multi-use building that was a school, a community center, a grange and perhaps a church. The many excursions to the prairie helped for some reason. A bit of relief was noted. Mindlessly driving around smoking cigarettes and drinking beer wasn't therapy, recommended therapy anyway, but it was where I felt better and had a chance to put some things together. I was strangely attracted to the abandoned homesteads, the miles of openness, the irrigated fields, the harsh dry land dominated by sage and cactus, and the little towns that I came to ever so often.
After awhile, I began to notice more of what there was to see. I got to think about other people in other times. I got to think about the scope or arc that connected them to me. I could see children playing, carriages with anxious horses waiting to take their families home, a wedding, or perhaps a funeral.
Those people and the place that held their lives was enough of an encouragement for me to make a choice. I later found a quote that perfectly expressed that decision.
It was also a new beginning in understanding healing against the dying. I couldn't go on without further relief. Little did I know what all I would yet discover. It was truly like the oft quoted Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
Most everyone had a Rusty in their life and for some, many Rusty's. Part of life was the accumulation of hurts, usually many hurts that needed healing. But some hurts were potentially terminal and the only possible help was finding a mud pit that gave your waning spirit some hope and relief. At least enough to make a decision that you otherwise wouldn't have made.
I know. You're saying, "But didn't Rusty die?" Yeah, he did.
