Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: KINDNESS (11/04/21)
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TITLE: I thought, Don't mention that snake! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Noel Mitaxa
11/11/21 -
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When we met, he’d been farming for over thirty years, and I was just starting my ministry in a small coastal town in southern Australia.
He and his wife Sylvia had built up their farm from scratch, after getting married at the end of World War Two. They struggled at first, through postwar shortages of most materials, and careful rationing even of essentials. But the farm became more productive as they diversified with crops, sheep, and beef cattle, with an eye for anticipating and moving with any changes in approaching seasons or market trends. And it became a family enterprise as their kids grew up.
Despite the demands and unpredictability that farming can throw into any day’s mix, their home was always open to visitors. They enjoyed welcoming folks from the city, who would wax eloquent about the relaxed serenity of life on a farm. Harry and Sylvia would kindly bite their tongues at all this envious praise – not daring to mention all the extra hard hours they put in before their visitors, so they could spend time with them.
Harry also kept a careful eye on his livestock. And on the snakes, for Australia’s snakes are among the world’s most venomous. This presented Harry with a balancing act. Knowing that they kept mice and other crop vermin numbers down, he always carefully took them away from the house, also aware that they strike more from surprise or fear than from aggression.
And despite their long hours, they were among our most regular attenders, with Harry as a down-to-earth deacon and a great personal encouragement. More kindness – and diversification - showed here, as Harry mingled with folks in the church foyer. Whenever he detected anyone’s physical restrictions, he’d offer time to treat them with free massages, for he had built up a part-time practice as an osteopath.
Several sessions on his massage table showed his kindness with twists of humor to distract me from the approaching sudden jerk for which I needed to be totally relaxed – to avoid any worse damage. “Don’t worry,” he’d say. “This won’t hurt me a bit!” or “Try and touch your left knee with your right elbow...” And just as I was planning such a move – CRUNCH!!! – the big twist arrived; and I could suddenly say goodbye to my back pain or leg stiffness…
Years of farming had shaped him into a mountain of a man, so it was difficult to imagine how a fellow of his size could strap himself into the cockpit of a World War Two Spitfire fighter plane. But though he never went into details about his combat history, he enjoyed taking people for joy flights around the district. Like many veterans, he only shared the memories with others who had also lived through them, to embody the sobering truth of Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon’s dictum:
“Life is mostly froth and bubble, two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble, and courage in your own.”
Aussie Christmases experience a serious shortage of snow, sleigh rides and decorative knitwear. For us it’s mid-summer, so we have huge crowds gathering in parks and gardens across the nation for Carols by Candlelight celebrations. This idea began in 1938 in Melbourne, Victoria, and now it regularly attracts over a hundred thousand people – many times the population of our small town.
Our church hit on the idea of Carols in the Barn, as close to a stable as we could get. So we arranged a big circle of square hay bales for everyone to sit on and sing. After singing our hearts out, we had planned a big barbecue supper. And it worked a treat.
Until Harry came over, smiling. “Now I can tell you,” he said. “While we were singing, nobody else saw a snake come out from between two bales and slither along behind quite a few pairs of ankles, before it disappeared again. I thought, Don’t mention that snake! Because if I had; everybody - including the snake - would have panicked and we would have collected a mass of injuries in the rush. And probably a few snake bites.”
Let's keep this our little secret, Harry
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Loved the ending...well done!
Blessings~
Kindness in another’s trouble, and courage in your own.”!!!