The Old Barn
When I was young my Father had a friend who owned a huge farm. My Father would do things to help his friend and in exchange the friend let my Dad use some of his land to grow some vegetables. Being dragged out into the field to help my Dad with the crops didn’t seem all that much fun to me at the time. Usually it was a family affair. My Dad and Mom, my brother and sister, and I would tend to the crops until they became available to our dinner table.
Through those farming adventures we do have some funny family memories, though. My Dad was one that was known to read things and try them. Always the adventurer, my Dad read that if you put a drop of mineral oil at the end of an ear of corn you would keep the insects away from them. So my Dad got an eye dropper and a jug of mineral oil and one ear at a time he went about putting a drop on each ear. Row after row he did this. When we came back the next day every ear of corn was taken off the stalk. He walked out close to the woods and found a huge stack of corn cobs, with the corn eaten off them. The raccoons ate the corn off every single ear.
I would kid my Dad that those must be some really picky raccoons because they would only eat the corn if it was buttered. He didn’t really appreciate my humor.
One day my Dad’s friend decided he was going to rebuild one of his barns. Although my Dad worked for free, he did allow his friend to pay me a little bit. I remember it being really hard work. I remember pulling nails out of old lumber for hours. I also remember the lunches. Boy, do farmers ever know how to serve great lunches. It was during one of those lunches that my Dad, at least half way, let down his guard and actually paid me a compliment. My Dad’s friend said, “You’re son really does work hard.” To which my Dad said, “He starts out a little bit slow, but once he gets going he is a hard worker.”
His name was Albert Bacon Fall and he was one of the first senators from the new state of New Mexico. He was actually born in Frankfort, Kentucky. By age eleven he was hard at work in the cotton factories. This caused severe respiratory problems and he headed out west to New Mexico because the climate there helped him with that condition. When New Mexico was still a territory he would serve on separate occasions as an associate justice of their Supreme Court and Attorney General. He was also a lawyer and several of his clients were of questionable character.
There is a sedimentary rock formation out west in the Powder River Basin. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The formation had a strange shape to it. It looked like it had a spout and a handle, hence its name: Teapot Dome. The features of the Dome have been eroded by windstorms. To look at it today one might wonder how it got its name.
In the early twentieth century the Navy was converting their ships from coal to oil based burners. To insure the Navy would have enough oil to power these vessels some oil producing fields were targeted as Naval Oil Reserves. The area around Teapot Dome was one of those areas ceded to the Navy Department.
It’s strange how it is sometimes easier to believe in magic than it is to believe in spiritual things. This isn’t something new, it happened in Biblical times, too. In fact, many manuscripts omit the last part of one verse and the whole next verse in this story, even though it would seem to be the juiciest parts. For our story we will include them. It seems like an angel of the Lord would randomly visit this pool. When the angel arrived the water would stir up and bubble. Then the race was on because the first one to get in got cured of whatever ailed them.
A crippled man was just sitting there next to the pool hardly moving at all. When the water stirred, he hardly moved. Why should he? He was a cripple and everyone one else was quicker than he was. Then Jesus walked by. The interesting thing about the story is that the crippled man never asked Jesus to heal him. Jesus asked the man a question, “Do you want to be healed?” Strangely the man response is a series of excuses as to why he can’t be healed. The man never asked Jesus to help him nor does he ask Him to heal him. I imagine Jesus must have had the most puzzled look on His face. Jesus tells the man if he wants to be healed, then do something about it. Jesus basically tells the man, “Stop complaining and get up and walk.” The stern look in Jesus’ eyes must have persuaded him that this was one of those put up or shut up moments, because he did what Jesus told him to do. Guess what? He walked.
Senator Falls was appointed to the cabinet position of the Department of Interior. The act he might most be remembered for was transferring those Naval Oil Reserves from the Navy Department to the Interior Department. He then began leasing the Reserves without competitive bids, which was perfectly legal at the time. The problem came when people started noticing that his modest lifestyle began to change into something much more extravagant. It soon became clear that he was taking bribes from the oil companies. He was convicted of conspiracy and bribery and would serve a year in jail. He was the first former cabinet member to be sentenced to prison for an act he committed while he was in office.
The President Albert B. Fall served under ran under the campaign: Return to Normalcy. He won over sixty percent of the popular vote. He was never known to be an over worker. He was more interested in having fun while he was in office. He delegated the work to men like Albert Fall and never checked up on them. When he died in office he was one of the most popular Presidents ever. Years after he was buried stories, like the Teapot Dome Scandal, came to light and his ranking among former Presidents took a nosedive. Today, Warren G. Harding is ranked among one of the worst Presidents we have ever had.
Work is one of those four letter words we sometimes just don’t want to hear. The double four letter words of “hard work” are even worse. Sometimes we are slow to start. Sometimes we want everyone to have pity on us and do our work for us. Sometimes we “delegate it” to others and wash our hands of the responsibility. This usually means what needs to be done takes longer or ends up in a bigger mess than if we would have just jumped right in and did it ourselves.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, Please help me in those times when I just have a real hard time getting started on a project I know needs to be completed. Let my excuses be left inside me and let me roll up my sleeves and get to it. Let not my pleasures cause me to pawn off that which I should do myself. Amen.
