Caution: Chigger Crossing

For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7A

(The Hatter on the far right, the one with the pecs and the hip-hop shorts with undies showing. Brother Jeff in the red. Yea, we grew into those ears. )

"But I am ready to go home!" I pleaded with Mom, my 12 year old attention span had gone way past its limit.

"We will go when WE are ready, understand?" was the reply.
We were visiting another Army family, one I did not particularly care for. The kids were a bunch of bohemians, intellectuals, non athletic, pasty white. I was ready to go home, find my buds and head for the woods, the ball field, or even read a book, I was that bored.
I stomped away, and figured I’d show them. Ignoring the freaky family of Einsteins and Emily Dickinsons, I found my refuge, the woods across from their house.

I have written before of the magnetic draw of the Alabama woodlands (see "JeepTrails"-Aug. Archives) and it seemed that I always ended up there for fun, relaxation and introspection. This time it was nothing more than rebellion and retribution. I wasn’t "running away", I was simply going to make it difficult for them; when it WAS time to go, I would be gone, a desperate search would ensue, I would finally appear all innocent, and joy would spread across Enterprise, Al.—the little lost boy had been found! Yeah, right.

Since I was sulking, the woods brought no joy that steamy summer afternoon. No air moving, nothing but that familiar thick humidity that always caused the sweat to form on the small of my back, I decided I'd better find a soft place to sit down.

"Ah...a nice bed of pine straw. Wow, great spot. Man, I’m gonna lay back here and look at these cool trees for a while." I folded my hands behind my head and relaxed. I didn’t read the sign.

CAUTION: CHIGGER CROSSING

Every stinking redbug in the state of Alabama must have been in that bed of pine straw. I won’t go into a long explanation of a chigger bite, you can go get a background here. It is another critter of the deep south that ranks up there with the possum on a half shell. Just what purpose they serve leaves me scratching my head. In this case, I was left scratching every part of my body from my ankles to my armpits. I will leave it to you own imagination regarding the location of ‘ground zero’, lets just say every crack, nook, and cranny on my tanned backside was a Chigger Condo.

I just kept thinking..."man, this pine straw was kinda itchy, maybe my idea wasn’t a good one, oh well, lemme head on back to the freak show."

I will say this about chiggers. They are stubborn critters. They feed off the fluid in a human’s skin cells and attach to human hair. They are so small, it would take a magnifying glass to see them. Without a quick hot shower, you are doomed to about a week of uncontrollable scratching. Think a mosquito bite is annoying? Multiply it by 10. My miserable life consisted of calamine rubdowns for about a week; my sweet Mama dabbed my spotted body in all the places a 12 year old would allow, and I took care of ground zero. I looked like a spotted pink and tan alien. I sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind.

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So I fast forward almost 40 years and the scripture is still so true. The amazing thing about the Word of God, it just doesn’t change. The spiritual laws of His Kingdom are so much stronger than the natural gravitational laws of earth!

Evangelical Christians tickle me at times. And yes, I consider myself one, and I have been guilty of what I am about to say, so I can pick and jab a little. We frequently say: "The Lord told me (fill in the blank)". Sometimes it just doesn’t turn out like we thought it would, so we immediately start rebuking the devil, blaming Satan that the (fill in the blank) turned into a major cluster-blunder.

I wonder sometimes, do you possibly think that it is us who go off half-cocked sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind? Were the chiggers a direct result of my rebellion or merely that I picked the wrong bed of pine straw? Who knows, but it would not have happened had not I made a stupid decision in the first place! The fact that I still remember it gives credence to this:

Sowing capricious calculations usually reap regrettable reverberations!

Translated into "Wiregrass Alabama" lingo: Dumb ideas bring dumb results. No need to blame Satan, sometimes we just need to say "Pardon me, Father," and chalk it up to experience. Darn those chiggers.


The "Hatter", obviously chigger free, in training to irritate his future wife with snoring rever- berations that would peel paint off a wall.

Mark

Prov. 17:22