Short Stories
Jim lives out on a ranch in west Texas. He had dropped out of high school to do what he had always dreamed of – work horses. He was a decent guy growing up in downtown Houston and overall did pretty well considering his upbringing. He never met his dad and his mom was almost perpetually drunk or high. He would get away from real life by watching old westerns and dreaming of the slow carefree lifestyle of a cowboy. After graduating with decent grades he answered an ad to work as a hand on a ranch in the plains of Texas. There he existed, living in his own world. He had created a world where he was insulated and felt he had things in hand. Meaning was found in the task at hand and in the day in which he lived. Then one day he got a letter that would change his life forever. It simply read:
“Jim I know you probably will not believe what I am about to write to you. I am your dad. I met your mom while I was in school and we had a relationship for a few months. Until just last night I never know that you were born. It was through a very strange series of events that I got your address. I now live in Canada and would like to meet you.
Before I say anymore I want to make sure that you are really out there. I still can’t believe it's true that I have a son.
Respond soon, your father”
Jim pondered the letter. He was numb . . . no emotion, nothing. He had always known that he had a father. It was a biological fact. But was he alive, dead, a drunk like mom, a millionaire who purposely avoided him. He glared in the large square driver’s side mirror of the old beaten up pick up truck where he sat. There was a part of that person in the mirror who he had never been able to figure out. The form of the face in the mud splattered mirror he new well. The rough shaven beard, the dark brown eyes with weather warn lines. But there is more to the image than that.
There is a history . . . link to a heritage that has been lost. There’s more to life than what one makes of it. There’s what one is made of . . . a genetic blueprint of identity. But that is just the problem . . . finding out what one is made of. That image he sees is full of questions but no answers. These are the questions which can be ignored except in those painful and lonely times of life. Now is one of those times.
Jim comes to and realizes he has been sitting there looking into the mirror for around 30 minutes. This is a strange thing as Jim is not a man who ponders meaning much. He works hard, shoots straight, and does what he thinks is best. That’s life . . . nothing more, nothing less. Well at least until this letter from his father arrived. Now everything is different. He is no longer an individual in a world of his own making. The father has connected with the son. Jim must now think in a way that he has not done before or at least in a long while. His decision does not take place in the bubble he has created for himself. His father is waiting.
He puts the old truck in second avoiding the worn first gear and pulls out of the post office parking lot. The hot dry air swirls through the truck as he shakes his head in disbelief. He doesn’t look for mail since there is no one who writes. He has never even been to the post office before. The wife of his boss just handed him the key to their box and asked him to check it on his way through town. He doesn’t even have an address for goodness sake. In his state of shock he just keeps glancing down to the letter in the breast pocket of his white t-shirt.
When he pulls up his boss’s wife asks, “What’s the matter?” .
“Aw . . . nuthin’. Just got a letter for myself in your post box.”
“Who’s it from?” she asks.
“Not sure to be honest. It says it’s from my dad, but . . . I don’t know.”
Then she says the words that can not be ignored, “Well there’s only one way to find out.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have to respond, silly.”
“Huh . . .”
Now he has come to the edge of life. It is that moment where meaning is questioned and existence weighed and measured.
Jim is content where he is and in what he is doing. He has got to get all of this out of his mind. He gets back in the truck to drive the 20 miles out to a pond where he likes to go fishing.
“I am really want for nothing . . . or at least I was. Now this letter has totally screwed my life up. It’s a curse. It is messing everything up. This man is one cold person who would just send a letter like this and expect me to ‘respond’. Who need’s him? I certainly don’t.”
As Jim feels his face getting hot with emotion and the truck about to throw a rod running almost flat out. He slows the truck a bit, pulls the letter out of his pocket. He then rips it into and tosses half out the window. Then a few seconds later the other half. Now the curse is gone.
In a short while he is sitting in his favorite fishing spot in the shade. His lifelong habit of putting his uncomfortable past out of his mind is encountering its greatest challenge to date. He has grown comfortable being his own man. But what great things could wait in store if he responds to that letter. On the other hand what if this is just some mistake or twisted joke to add to the pain he has experienced already.
“I think I will go back and hunt for that note on the side of the road,” he thinks as a tingle of hopeful emotion goes down his spine. With that energy he begins reeling in his line and then . . . he feels a powerful jerk on the end of his line. He excitedly jerks the pole up and sets the hook. He watches as the line cuts through the water’s surface and hears the drag grudgingly give line to the fish. “Oh baby! This fish is huge!”
Ten minutes later Jim is totally giddy as he gawks at the large pot belly of the biggest black bass he has ever seen. He holds the grand trophy by the bottom lip and lets out the kind of belly laugh that just makes everything in life seem right. He then pulls the beer out of the ice chest he had brought to make as much room as possible for the fish. The tail was left flopping out from under the lid. But that would do well enough to get the trophy back to the house. There he could call the bosses taxidermist to come over and take the measurements.
Three weeks later Jim sat with his boss having cheap coffee on a windy west Texas morning. He recounted the battle with the fish taking twice the time to tell the story as the actual event had taken. All the while he stared at the painted cast of the fish mounted on cheap pine hanging on the faded wall paper of his dining room. His boss replied, “Well Jim I have to tell you that a man don’t get but one chance in a lifetime to catch a fish like that. And even then he’s a lucky man.”
“Yeah, you better believe it. I won’t ever get a chance like that again,” Jim said as he got up and walked toward the coffee pot to pour another round.
The boss changed the subject, “My wife tells me you got a letter in the mail a while back, from someone claiming to be your old man. What ever came of that?”
“Aw nuthin, I just decided not to mess with it. My family life has never been nothing but trouble for me. Besides, see for yourself, I got things pretty good round here.” He chuckled and motioned towards the plastered fish on the wall. “You want sugar in this cup or just black?”
The Bible is revelation. It is often referred to as “special revelation” to differentiate from “general revelation.” General revelation is how God has revealed himself to mankind as a whole i.e. in nature, through moral conscious, etc. Special revelation refers to the things that God has shown us in the Bible that we could not have discovered on our own. Even Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall could not find their purpose or properly know God. So how much more we in our sinful state need to hold dearly to the special revelation that we have in the Bible.
In this story we see both general and special revelation. The main character knew he had a father because that is an accepted biological fact. However, the simple biological fact does not result in a relationship with his father. The color of our hair, shape of our face, and other genetic hints tell us a bit about our father. A genuine and meaningful relationship is that which can only be had from “special revelation.” That is when your father purposefully communicates who he is to his children.
This is why the special revelation found in the Bible is so very important to us. Even more, this is why Jesus’ coming was such a brilliant act of grace from God. Jesus was the ultimate special revelation to mankind. He was not just words on a page, or even a messenger who had spoken with God. He is God himself packaged in an intimate way so that we can once and for all know the absolute truth about ourselves, the universe, and the God who made them both. But as this story shows we as individuals must respond to special revelation to enter into that relationship with the Father.
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