Family Farm Friday #63: Wrong and Right

"Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived." ~Shane Claiborne

On Tuesday, I drove back to eastern New Mexico for a situation that was just wrong. Parents and grandparents burying a 14 year old kid. A huddle of teenage boys in the back of a gym--not to learn the next play in some basketball game--but to get their instructions as pall bearers. A eulogy that contained a discussion of the unrecognized excitement of getting a driver's license. It was all so wrong.

And then, at some point during the day, I looked around and realized that in the midst of all that was wrong, I also saw a perfect example of everything that is right with rural America.

There was a community--and I mean beyond the town where the kid lived, but the whole eastern side of the state--rallying around a family to share their sorrow. A high school gymnasium packed to the brim. Hundreds of people. All there to show their love and support for the grieving family.

And you know what? There were no divisions among those there. There were different races. Different religions. Different economic classes. Different ages. And not a bit of that mattered. The gym full of people cried together. They prayed together. Afterward they ate together. They were there, for that family, together. If you ask me, that's how it's supposed to be. That's right.

And there was food. In rural New Mexico, when someone dies, we cook. It's an automatic response. The second you get the bad news, you start praying and dumping ingredients into a bowl. It's totally not about the food (although I'm just going to say it....in my opinion it's hard to beat funeral food in a small town!), it's about doing something--anything--to help. Because that's what we do when there is a problem. We offer help in any way that we can. Be it a hand, a tractor, a check, or an enchillada casserole. And that's something right.

There was faith. From the preacher leading the gym in singing Colten's favorite hymn about the roll being called up yonder, to the discussion of various papers and markings in his Bible, to stories about the book of Job and prayers for the family. And there was a heartwrenching, beautiful song about saving a place in Heaven. In tragic times, people seem to either cling to their faith or walk away from it altogether. We're clingers.....and that's right.

And, finally, there was love. You could feel it in that gym. You could see it by all of the hugs being shared by everyone there. You could see it in all of the eyes welled up with tears when "When I Get Where I'm Going" blared from the speakers. You could see it when his two teenage sisters walked up to the stage, hand in hand, to speak about the lessons they had learned from their baby brother. There was love in that gym...and it was right.

In times of such profound sadness, such wrong...maybe it's the right that gets us through.