Issue 052 PDF Version - Christian Ethics Today

There were no caves to explore where I grew up. The sandy
Texas plain north of Loraine was typical of West Texas.
There is only one “mountain” rising above that plain.
Lone Wolf Mountain proudly bore the title of “the highest
peak in Mitchell County.”
Visible for miles, it rose to a majestic 800 feet above sea
level. The air was no thinner on its peak than on the sandy
soil below.
Sand—lots of sand—produced tumble weeds, cat-claw
bushes, mesquite trees, and wild plum thickets.
There was a huge plum thicket on the dry creek in our
pasture. The tart wild plums produced some of the best jelly
I have ever tasted. Neighbors came to our farm to gather wild
plums on the “halves:” a bucket for them and a bucket for us.
Ours was left on the porch. No signs posted. No instructions.
It was the unspoken courtesy of West Texas.
The plum thicket covered nearly an acre on the creek.
Under the matted limbs were trails carved by small animals.
Secret places never exposed to the sun. “West Texas caves.”
Our neighbors’ daughter was six and I was seven. There
were no boys in her family, no girls in mine. In one of those
“caves” we explored the mystery of what makes boys different
from girls. The game was called “doctor.” We took turns
being the examining physician.
We both emerged with childhood curiosity satisfied. We
might have sung with Peggy Lee, “Is That All There Is?”
Wiser, we both went home.
She “confessed” to her mother, who cried in anger on our
front porch as she told my mother of the secret tryst, and of
her daughter’s contaminated innocence and admitted guilt.
I heard the car drive off.
Mother entered my room. “Come with me Hal Holmes.”
24 • CHRISTMAS 2004 • CHRISTIAN ETHICS TODAY
The Haystack Prayer Meeting
By Hal Haralson, Austin, TX
Whenever she used both of my names, I knew I was in
trouble.
We went past the windmill, past the barn to the haystack.
Mother dropped to her knees in the hay and pointed for me
to do the same.
She prayed and confessed my “sin” to God. She told God
how disappointed she was in me; how she had prayed while
pregnant with me as she had walked the dusty road; how in
the pasture she had dedicated to God the child she carried.
She asked God for forgiveness for herself as a mother for failing
to raise her son as God would have him to be.
She left me at the haystack.
Deep in the recesses of my seven-year-old mind I vowed
never to disappoint her—or God—again.
I did not understand the impact of this experience until
sixty years later. Why then? Maybe it was the cool mountain
air of Taos, New Mexico. Perhaps it was the beauty of the
200-year-old Mable Dodge Luhan Conference Center where
I was participating in a writing conference led by Paula
D’Arcy. Conceivably it was a combination of these physical
stimuli coupled with the words of this inspirational woman.
Paula honestly and openly shared her remembrance of the
death of her husband and two-year-old daughter Sarah. The
tragedy had occurred twenty years before when a drunken
driver going 90 miles per hour struck their car. Her pain
became her gift . . . her journal, published as Song for Sarah,
sold 250,000 copies in the first six months.
My recent read of Parker Palmer’s book Let Your life Speak,
which suggests that many of us lead desperate lives trying to be
who we think others want us to be, helped to prompt my
insight. The intermingling of the words of Palmer and
D’Arcy produced a personal revelation as clear as if my soul