Marlboro Fences

Sometimes I bitch too much about being a Christian. Mostly because I have been in the forest for so long that I only see the trees. But every so often, I feel by spirit leaving me and lifting to the sky. I see the great forest, filled with animals, waterfalls, and green vegetation. Today my spirit left me for a bit.

I was trying to make some money so that I could move out to Portland, so I posted on craigslist to try and get some work. I posted this ad: “STUDENT WILL DO ANYTHING FOR $15 AN HOUR,” and hoped that a man named Buffalo Bill would not hire me to rub his feet. This morning I was woken up with a call to come and tamp fence posts. If you have never done this, you should try it some time, you are grossly missing out on some very sore shoulders. You take a hollowed out pole that is about two feet long with handles on both sides. One side is closed and the other is open. You take this tamper and place the open end over the top of a metal fence post. Then, you bring the tamper up and slam it back down on the post, driving it into the dusty earth. The man who hired me was named Bruce and he needed 50 of these slammed into the ground. I was way out towards Bennet, which is basically a small, farming town half an hour from Denver on the eastern plains. I would describe the town in more detail, but that is all there really is to say about it.

I met Bruce and another guy there and they ran a small fencing business, no, not the fencing that involves swords, the fencing that involves hammers and wire and does not require white suits with beekeeper masks. Both of these guys were in their early 50’s, pot bellies and kinda bitter. Every other word they said rhymed with the word duck and started with an f. I listened to them complain about work, traffic, women, employers, employees, the weather and so on. Just a side note, I have to say that I felt pretty bad ass today. Working on a fence out in a flat, dusty, field, listening to southern hardcore while chain smoking Marlboros with my two employers. It was somewhat manly, somewhat redneck, and somewhat cowboyish. I have never met the Marlboro man, but I think he might have looked like one of these guys, maybe a little thinner though and with more teeth. As I listened to them, my spirit left me. It was one of those times when my heart broke for two old ranchers/contractors who lived with little meaning or purpose in their lives, angry at the cards life had dealt to them. Bitter against the government, lonely without wives.

And I saw the forest. I remembered just how terribly dark and dry life can be without this great hope that I have. I may not know all the answers, and I may not be the happiest or most put together person I know, but I have this belief that I am more than just a robot, that life has purpose, life has meaning. I wanted to share this with them. To tell them that there is more to life, that this world is not all there is. I wanted to tell them that they matter to God and they mattered to me, but I wasn’t sure how to pull this off without sounding like the weirdo’s they saw on T.V. Sometimes I struggle with Christianity, but I also know God, and today was one of the few times(sadly) I felt tremendous joy for having the privilege to know God, to have purpose, to have meaning.