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SAGEBRUSH PHILOSOPHER
Stephen Bly
Circa 1996
I got a little behind work and I guess I spent too much time down at the Drover’s Café. My plans were just to stop by for a quick cup of coffee. But Jefferson Davis Atwood was sitting there eating pie and spouting off stories about the old days. Naturally, I had to stay and hear him out.
J.D. Atwood is our sagebrush philosopher. You know, the loquacious westerner with bits of wisdom for every subject on earth. About marriage, he once said, “There are only two ways to argue with your wife and neither of them work.”
Atwood Philosophy
J. D. told us that “a man who wants to loan you his slicker when it ain’t raining ain’t doing much for you.” He’s not much of one for revealing personal problems. He said, “The best thing to do is keep your troubles to yourself. Half the folks you tell them to don’t give a twit. And the other half will be glad to hear you’ve got them.”
But one of my favorites was when he said, to the effect, “Coming as close to the truth as a man can come without actually getting there is coming pretty close. But it still ain’t the truth.”
My Philosophizing
I got to thinking about that as I watched the evening news. I don’t think there’s one person left on TV that is committed to telling the truth. The commercials are misleading. The news is manipulated. The politicians are deceptive. And the shows themselves are more interested in being politically correct than telling the truth.
Now, it seems to me that happens to be one place where every individual Christian could make a real impact on the world around him. We could be the one place in the office, the shop, the neighborhood, and in family life where others could be assured of hearing truth.
Signs of Maturity
According to the Bible, truth-telling is a sure sign of Christian maturity. “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).
Honesty and truth are getting to be rare commodities in a world propelled by greed and selfishness. But they’re not optional character qualities for those who believe.
Maybe that’s what the old sagebrush philosopher, J.D. Atwood, meant when he growled, “Honesty ain’t something you should flirt with. You should be married to it.”