Will the preacher have to lie at your funeral?

        

I saw a t-shirt once that said, “Live your life so the preacher doesn’t have to lie at your funeral.” It started me thinking. We all have a pattern to our lives, but how often do we stop to take a long, hard look at our lives?

         When the stock market crashed in 1929, our country entered a tailspin of many years that is referred to as the Great Depression. It was a time of incredible hardship, unemployment and hopelessness. Thousands of homeless people began to wander the country in search of food and jobs. They were known as “hobos.”

         These hobos faced great hardships, coupled with physical and verbal abuse, dishonesty and a host of other issues. They also encountered many kind and loving folks who did their best to lend a hand. These traveling men and women seemed to bring out either the best or the worst in those they encountered.

         There was a code among the hobos. It seems that wherever they traveled, they left behind curious symbols. These symbols, often left on fence posts, doorposts and foundations in inconspicuous places, made no sense to others. Yet to the hobos they were roadmaps that frequently made the difference between starvation and a meal, or shelter and exposure to the elements. Not infrequently, these symbols made a difference between life and death.

         There were symbols for many things, such as:

• ·      Dishonest
• ·      Stay away
• ·      Can sleep in barn
• ·      Help if sick
•     Mean dog

The hobos learned to see through the facades, or false fronts, that people put up in their interactions with others. Hobos were able to see through to the heart to see the true person.

I read a story years ago about a man who owned a general store in a town during the Great Depression. It was not infrequent in those days for a storeowner to leave meat and a loaf of bread on the counter. Customers were welcome to make a free sandwich. It seems that this storeowner noticed an unusual number of strangers making sandwiches and leaving. He perceived that they were hobos. When the next one came in, he stopped the hobo and asked him why so many were coming into his store. Quietly, the stranger motioned for the owner to come outside, where he proceeded to take him around the corner of the building and stopped, pointing to a symbol scratched on the foundation. He said to the owner, “that says you are a kind man and will feed us.”

Like the hobos, all of us will leave a symbol behind. This symbol will not be written by us, but by our loved ones and all others whose paths we crossed during our lifetime.

These symbols of our lives are not just visible when we lay at the funeral home, but are visible at various times in our lives. The high school graduate leaves a symbol behind as to the kind of person they were in school. The way we do business, our interactions with our kids, even the magazines we subscribe to and the shows we watch leave a symbol of our lives.

What symbol have you left behind? Is it a symbol you are proud of? What symbol will others leave for you after your paths have crossed?  What will be the cumulative symbol that describes you at life’s end? If a hobo touched your life today, what symbol would he or she leave to describe you?

Will the preacher have to lie at your funeral, or will he be able to tell the truth?

Think about it.