Ask for a little help and you may get an answer

Editor:

Several years ago, I submitted a little letter to the paper about the Big Bang, the nature of the universe and what God is, at least for me. I’ve been thinking more about that recently. 

Not long ago I had occasion to offer a little prayer, as I’ve done, on occasion, all of my life. 

Many years ago, after I’d been honorably discharged for the United States Air Force, I was working in a paper mill in South Georgia, wondering where my life and my little family’s life might go. Although the scope and magnitude of the operation of that gigantic mill was fascinating, I was beginning to realize that maybe that line of work wasn’t my calling, when I got a letter from the Defense Department in Washington DC offering me a job. I went up there, interviewed, came back home, an began to pray, “Please God let me get that job.”

The job came through and led to a career that took our little family overseas and me to places I’d never dreamed of visiting – much less working – for months and years. It gave me the opportunity to gain a college degree which I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. I’m a working man. My sense, like most everybody’s, is to get up every day and go to work. As our family grew, I always had this little thought in the back of my mind, “Dear God, what would I do if I didn’t have a job.”

It’s said there aren’t any atheists in foxholes. I reckon that’s pretty accurate. I was never in a foxhole, but I was in a few places where I offered up a little prayer. I reckon it’s okay to say a little prayer to the Cosmos or Budda or Yahweh or Jesus or Allah or God or Providence, to something outside ourselves, when we feel a need. Goodness knows in these times of conflict and strife and so much ill will and seemingly endless war, I reckon it’s a little liberating, freeing, releasing, to ask for a little help. To take a little moment to reach outside ourselves, to something greater. Which brings me to my original point of recently offering a little prayer.

A couple of years ago on wife Katie’s 75th birthday I bought her a pair of white gold earrings. Yes, they were kind of expensive. Since then, they are the only ones she wears. A year or so ago one fell out in the yard near the gate and she found it. A little more than a week ago she was over in Montrose taking a walk near the river when she slipped and fell on a short, steep section of a rocky, gravely path. Took a pretty good fall. Skinned her knees and stubbed a big toe. Got pretty bummed up. After arriving home and taking a nap, she realized one of her earrings was missing. It wasn’t in the car or around the house or yard. The only other place it could be was where she fell. We decided that early the next morning we would drive back over to Montrose, down by the river, to look for her earring. I prayed, “Dear God, please let us find Grandma’s earring.”

We got over to Montrose and scanned the path as we walked down to the river. Nothing. We got to the spot where she fell. The grass at the bottom of the path was thick and high. Last year’s cottonwood leaves littered the rocky, uneven ground. Taller undergrowth banded the path where the earring could have flown. While Katie stood on the edge, I scrambled down the path and got down on my hands and knees. Within less than two minutes I saw the earring, picked it up and shouted, “Grandma!” The next thing was an offered little prayer. “Thank you, God.”

So, in these times of conflict and strife with so much ill will in the world and seemingly endless war, let’s maybe take a little moment to reach outside ourselves, to something greater. Say a little prayer. Ask for a little help. Who knows, you may get an answer.

Joe Dix

Gunnison