{"id":5868,"date":"2013-01-28T10:15:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T18:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=5868"},"modified":"2015-05-05T15:00:49","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T22:00:49","slug":"wild-oats-and-their-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/01\/28\/wild-oats-and-their-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Oats and Their Harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Be happy, young man, while you are young,<\/strong><\/p>\n

and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.<\/strong>
\nFollow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see,<\/strong>
\nbut know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.*<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can just picture this scene, a gray haired old gentleman at table in a sidewalk cafe, acknowledging the carefree youth at the next table, smoking his cigarette, drinking whatever, and espousing his happy life of \u201cdevil may care.\u201d I can picture it because it’s clear memory.<\/p>\n

The old man, a retired architect of old world sensibilities was one I respected, and there was enough respect in return that he deigned to address some of my foibles. I tossed them off, of course.<\/p>\n

He didn’t, but he could have espoused the whole passage quoted above: \u201cGo ahead, do whatever you want . . . but know there are consequences.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBut.\u201d<\/strong> There’s that word, always messing\u00a0up the freedom, negating the compliment, bringing things back to reality.<\/p>\n

And so it is here in the ecclesiastical quote, a permission to live epicurean . . . with a careless zest like there’s no tomorrow.<\/p>\n

But<\/strong>, it reminds,\u00a0there is<\/em> a tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a number of obstacles and pains, not to mention an invisible \u201cguiding hand,” I got off that track and onto another destined to a better place.<\/p>\n

It was not so, apparently, with my friend Steve.<\/p>\n

I met Steve in 7th grade and he was my first bad influence<\/em>. He was so clever, so impishly devious, I couldn’t help liking him. He needed better influences and I thought for awhile I could provide that. But (there’s that word again), it went the other way.<\/p>\n

We spent years together as friends before drifting apart, both of us going onto worse.<\/p>\n

But as I said, I changed tracks. Apparently he never did.<\/p>\n

It was years later, like maybe 40, then serving as president of a large mission organization, I was asked to speak at a church some distance away. To the surprise of both of us, I ran into the sister of my old friend Steve. She was church secretary. I asked about her brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see him from time to time,\u201d she said. \u201cHe lives in the next town, under a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder a tree?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, he comes by sometimes, sometimes with one woman or another, usually needing money. He can be pleasant enough when he’s not strung out on something, but that’s not often.\u201d<\/p>\n

I never saw Steve, my visit was brief, but I’ve often reflected on his life, the road he was on and never got off of, and the destination it took him to.<\/p>\n

He had fun when he was young, but he never saw, or listened to, the big but<\/em>\u00a0in the\u00a0equation.<\/p>\n

Every road leads somewhere. In the end, everything matters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

__________________
\n*Ecclesiastes 11:9-10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every tree grows . . . some longer than others. The seed matters, the soil matters, the nurture matters. There’s nothing that doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5868"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10723,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions\/10723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}