For a variety of reasons TV westerns are no longer the standard fare of little boys. For those of us of a certain age, no Saturday morning was complete without our favorite wild, wild western in black and white. And of course you could always tell the good guys from the bad and sooner or later at least one of the bad guys wound up in a jail cell before being marched out at high noon on the main (and only) street of whatever town that episode took place in. Crowds gathered like we do for the Super Bowl to watch a bad guy get what he deserved, which was usually a public hanging. That later led to lunchtime games of “hang man” in the cafeteria, where the point was to guess the letters of a secret word. If you had too many wrong guesses your character got hung!
I had not remembered any of that for decades until this week and a public hanging in our neighborhood. (Really!) This week I drove into our neighborhood, where there is often a homemade sign pleading for drivers to slow down. On this occasion there were no signs but some sort of wooden contraption about three feet high in the middle of the road. I slowed down to get around it and noticed someone had taken a couple pieces of scrap wood and built a little gallows. And hanging by a rope was a dead squirrel. (I doubt if the squirrel had stolen horses or robbed a bank, but likely was the victim of a car that might have been moving too fast.) In any event, it was an unexpected visual roadblock I couldn’t help but pay attention to and remember. There were too many cars behind for me to stop and get a quick picture, and so I came back later but it was gone. (But not forgotten.)
Consider the issues and items in life that get your attention, that are unexpected or definitely out of place. No matter what, you will remember them longer than what you ate for breakfast the day before. Some images are so unique that their meaning is remembered long after the image is no longer close at hand. A gallows in the middle of the road was not the most loving, thoughtful, or creative effort, and likely led to some interesting dinner conversations with little children that night. The point being, the unexpected gets remembered, and can be used as a lesson for good or for bad. Now we are coming up on the punch line!
Every day you are creating images and monuments by how you live. What will others remember about you and what will they see that is out of the ordinary? People notice more than we sometimes intend; it is simply the way things are. One day Jesus asked his followers to let their lights shine. In doing so he was not asking disciples to draw attention to ourselves, but consider what light others will see, remember, and relate to. They are going to notice whether we plan it or not, so we need be careful with our choices so that our witness will be more helpful than hurtful, and more loving than selfish. In considering what Jesus has done for us, why would we waste his love on anything other than sharing the changed lights of grace, mercy, and peace he has given us to shine and share?