Suggested
reading (as background for this) is my April 2012 post titled: EMC Pioneer
“Blogger”. “Our friend and neighbor for
15 years, Rowland Smart, was a legend in his own time, and we loved him dearly. … 'Rowly' was nearly 90 years old, a WWII (Europe) and Korean War veteran,
good Christian, never married ..."
In a heavy old envelope I had labeled “SMART PHILOSOPHY” was his monthly
message for November 1988, teaching us and other friends to take the season
seriously. The two-page transcription of
“Count Your Many Blessings One by One” is not a fast read. So I share excerpts to set the table for this month, leaving the rest to your
imagination.
“Because
it is November, we all think of Thanksgiving and look forward to that feast we
hope to have … We all feel gratitude to
God for the bountiful year He has made possible for us, and give thanks for our
health and for life in this beautiful world He created for us.”
“I
can’t help thinking of a poor old raggedy man I once saw who lived up Price
Canyon just out of Castle Gate [a mining ghost town in eastern Utah]. I was patrolling one of the Utah Power &
Light high-voltage transmission lines.
This line went through a dense thicket of willow brush. … I
heard a man talking. I looked up and saw
this old, sad, downtrodden man. He was
using an explosive powder box for a chair, and had made himself a crude table …
between two cottonwood trees. There he
had some garbage he had gathered during the night at Helper, Utah. He had it set on this table on an old tin
plate with a sheet of newspaper for a table cloth. … He
had a bushy grey beard hanging down nearly to the table. Then I stopped as I realized he was praying
and thanking his Father in Heaven for this food he was about to eat. I waited till he had finished his prayer. I went back up the trail, then started to
whistle a tune as I came back around the path, so as not to startle him. He had merry twinkling eyes that showed
thankfulness and contentment. … He said, “I ain’t got much, Son, but you’re
welcome to share it with me.” I thanked
him and sat chatting with him for quite a while. [Rowly was always good at that.] I know he was well educated, for he used
better English and better manners than most of us do. He was just down on his luck, an old man with
no one wanting him around. … I told him I must go, for I was to meet the
man who would be waiting for me where the line crossed the road. He put out his big hard-working hand of
yester years to say goodbye. … in
his struggle for one more day as a free man …
He smiled …”
“It
was then as I walked along that lonely trail that I felt gratitude for what an
easy life God had made possible for me to have.
I thought as I walked along this stony rough mountain path that life is
like a trail. Some places along this
trail are smooth; others are rough and steep, and hard to climb. … I
guess it is God’s way to test us. He loves
us all and we are His children, and I know He expects us to be good to one
another …”
“Remember
this Thanksgiving how blessed and lucky you are; and when you pray to God over
the feast you’re going to eat, pause for a moment and think of the people in
the world …”
