"Try something new every year after you turn 30."
That's advice I heard waaaay back when I was 30. I did for a few years, but then I missed a couple years...or maybe a decade or so. This weekend I was able to do that "something new" for this year:
TOOK A RIDE IN A COMBINE!
I gotta tell you, it's a ride like no other. I sat perched in that Pexiglas-enclosed cab a good 10 feet above the corn that crumbled like crackers in the mouth of a toothy three-year-old. Corn stalks, huge weeds, and small trees that had sprung up over the summer were no match for that combine head as it effortlessly plowed and chewed its way through acres of harvestable maize. I peppered the poor farmer/neighbor, Ray, with as many questions as corn ears in a section row. (A "section," for you city slickers, is a square mile of field: 640 acres.) The combine might be easily heard inside our house, but riding in the thing seemed quieter somehow. Weird.
Digital readouts kept Ray and his eager rider abreast of the corn yield, its moisture, and how many bushels were filling up the hopper behind us. When the time came, Ray's son, Dustin, rode alongside us in their tractor pulling another big hopper. Saves Ray (and all farmers who do this, who are many) the time it takes to stop and load a waiting truck, although he still has to do that too. There we were: two huge pieces of farming equipment navigating the fields in perfect tandem. Awesome driving! Makes those NASCAR drivers look like what they do is kid stuff.
When Ray did stop to load corn into the waiting truck, I remarked, "Look at the chaff blowing away."
"Red dog," Ray said. "I've always call it 'red dog.'" He corrected me gently; chaff is the "red dog," you might say, of wheat.
It's nice to feel like a TOP DOG sometimes, but I know one thing better: I don't want to be "red dog" when it comes to Kingdom business: the Kingdom of God. My goal is to be the real thing, the corn or the wheat, not the red dog or the chaff, in the eyes of Jesus.
How about you?
October 8, 2010
