“How clearly the sky and the earth reveal God's glory!"
~ Psalm 19:1
In this small Honduran mountain
village, shoeless is the norm. Barefoot
is the only way folks travel around there, the only shoes being worn by the
horses. Children play in parched dirt;
the powder settling on their young skin seems the only protection from intense
sunlight. All that play helps prepare
them for a difficult life ahead. Feet
must be tough and travel-ready, not sensitive to every little rock on the
trail.
As I watched young Jeffery kneel
on the concrete church floor in humble prayer beside his mother, his bare feet
took me back to a simpler time in my life.
A time when we kicked off our shoes and with a fresh bounce in our
stride, took in the first kiss of spring warmth.
As a child, diamonds of dew often
greeted us on the fresh morning grass. Bright-green
blades stuck between our toes and tickled our ankles — a reminder that I had an
extra dollar in my pocket for mowing the lawn the day before. Even cutting grass didn’t demand foot
protection, because all we had was an old reel-type push mower.
The biggest threat to our feet
came from the pesky pinecones littering the yard. Constantly dropping from the evergreens that
graced our lawn, they made for the most time-consuming part of the mowing job.
As the summer wore on, skin that
was once so tender gained callouses. Walking
got a little easier with each rising and setting of the sun. Tough feet helped us endure stubbed toes,
thorns, splinters, and bee stings.
Occasionally, the puncture of a
rusty nail would require a tetanus shot. But even the threat of infection wasn’t enough
to get us to entertain the idea of wearing shoes.
Without the soreness of my soles
there was time to appreciate the fragrance of the air, the sweet fragrance of meadow
flowers and buttercups that I’d missed in the winter months. And how could one possibly claim that the blackbird’s
song was not music?
Little did we know that during these memorable childhood
summers, we were being brushed by the hand of God through His gift of the
earth. In those marvelous carefree days,
we absorbed the soul of the soil through the soles of our feet.
Now that I’m an old man, my going barefoot is limited to
inside the house. Recently, I ventured
barefoot out to the mailbox, only to find that each step was an agony from skin
that hadn’t been thickened for decades. But
it reminded me that life is not a race. It’s
a walk around the block, a stroll through the park, a trip down the memories of
our youth.
Lord Jesus, help me slow down when everything in
me is screaming “rush!” Help me find
beauty in the way sunlight refracts through a glass of water, the squishy sound
dew on grass makes when I hike through it, or the cute face a kid makes when
you listen intently to them. Amen
