The loss of George

The study of missions has made me more aware of cultures and cultures within cultures. It's really interesting to watch how people interact. It's particularly eye opening when you step out of your own for a season and then return.
I have recently been amerced in to the Kentucky blue-collar world, and I find it quite amusing. I stopped to listen to a couple of men talking at the job site today. They thought I was interested in the conversation, and I was to a degree. But what really intrigued me was the fact that one of them was speaking English with such a country slur I had to make an effort to follow. It was like another language.

One dear friend invited me to his "place" for lunch. He owns quite a bit of land a long the river with a number of rental properties, but he's living out of several tents and a RV trailer. He's planning on turning his "new" box truck into living space as well. His house burnt down about 5 months ago, and He's working on rebuilding, but the kicker for me was the lumber delivered today, not for the house, but for the new deck he wants me to help him build over the river.
How people determine priorities and lifestyles is fascinating. He loves his simple, debt-free living, and even his wife seems happy.

This Thanksgiving brought a bit of a downer for him though. He had befriended a couple of wild, white geese. They knew his voice. As he would walk down toward the river and call, "George!...Lucy!" And they would start honking.
He went to visit his daughter for Thanksgiving, and when he returned, Lucy was alone and honking inconsolably. These sort of geese mate for life. Someone must have shot George for their family feast. My friend was so angry the next time I saw him, he said, "I hate people." He took time off to make Lucy a home on the bank out of bails of straw.
Today when we went to lunch, he made sure to feed her. "I gotta' keep her eating through her morn'n."
One of his friends was there and asked about her mate. He seemed upset as well to hear of the loss and agreed to help get her a new partner.

Some would argue that these folk have their priorities messed up and need to change their lifestyles, and how this all meshes with my Christian views of priorities and such is up for debate. But I'm gleaning some insight from the riverbank and learning a bit about love from this culture within my culture.