Electric Fence

The very first church I served as pastor was located in the extreme northwestern corner of the Texas panhandle. The country was flatter than your computer screen and, for the most part, treeless except for a scrub brush here and there. Any summer day could be hot unholy but, a long sleeve shirt felt good at night as even the hottest July days cooled off in the high elevation. The winters blew cold, hard and long and wet. Maybe it was the stark geography or the spirit it took to settle that country but, whatever it was, the people were the best.

One of those folks was Kent Cartwright. Kent and his family lived fifteen miles northeast of town. There was nothing between his place and the North Pole but so much barbed wire. His ranch wasn’t in the middle of nowhere but, as the old-timers liked to say, you could see it from there.

Kent made his living out of the earth as a cattle rancher. It was hard to see where the dirt stopped and his well-worn boots began. He worked long, brutal hours, rain or shine, light or dark, sleet or snow, blistering hot or freezing cold. Raising cattle was a 24/7 kind of life. Something about being that close to the earth gave Kent a common sense view of reality that I found not only refreshing but even healing.
When things at church got boring, or started driving me crazy, I’d drive out to Kent’s place, hop up in his pickup and just ride around with him for hours. Kent had this long slow West Texas drawl. It took him ten seconds longer to say anything. Conversations could take a long time. An hour in the cab of Kent’s pickup was better than three on anyone’s couch.

One day, Kent began explaining the science of fencing. Turns out, there is one. Different kinds of cattle, geography and weather patterns demand different kinds of fences. In time, the lesson included electric fences. I couldn’t resist asking the next question.

“Kent, have you have you ever peed on an electric fence?” I asked, not sure how Kent, one of my deacons, would feel about knowing that his pastor knew how to say “pee.” Kent thought for a long time. Then, in that pokey-slow drawl, he answered, “Nope. Talked to an ol’ boy once that did – and that was good enough for me.”

I’m still laughing, twenty-five years later. Whatever that “ol’ boy” had described as his experience must have been horrifying as the stream of electricity followed his stream back up to his private parts in truly shocking ways.

I’m also still remembering the sage warning. We really don’t have to try to something before we criticize it. We don’t have to commit adultery or cheat on our taxes or spend money we don’t have or drink too much or stay in a career that’s robbing our soul and destroying our family. Sometimes, we can just talk to some ol’ boy, or girl, who did. Maybe that will be good enough for us, too. There’s more than one way to learn a lesson from an electric fence without getting burned, too.