honest heart

I met a man today. He works the land that he owns and that his parents owned before him. He radiates honesty and wholesomeness. He has the callused hard hands of honest work. He talks about his family as though they are his life. He wakes up and works the day into dusk. His coveralls are coated in oil and grease and his shoes are beaten and worn.

While we sat and spoke, his smile never faltered. He was genuine, a quality that has been rapidly fading through the generations. He was pleasant. He was also bent and twisted and could barely walk.  He was blessed with strong faith and cursed with a disease that stiffened his muscles and wrenched his spine. He is not yet an old man, but walks with a walker while his feet drag, more than step.

I see people every day that try so hard to do nothing with their lives. Their hands turned over welcoming, no, grasping at the idea of free. Entitled, but not earned.

I met a man today that knows the value in living.