What Did I Tell You, Dad?

Telly Rathmon was ten. He'd been honored by his father by receiving a single-shot, bolt-action, .410 shotgun and allowed to hunt in the back field alone. His father had faith in the boy because he had proven to be reliable and responsible.

The slender youth stepped up to the edge of the weed-cluttered grape vines. The air was cool, the sun bright and warm, and in the shadows of the morning-angled sun, frost clung tenderly to the fallen leaves.

Telly's hopes were high. He knew there were pheasants there because he 'd seen them scurry under the grass during the summer. Now that he was armed, he hoped they would let themselves be seen again. Just before he took his first step down the rows of wire-hung vines, a thought flashed through the boy.

The thought was so deep he felt it was his heart making the request. Almost wordlessly, he said/felt: "Dear God, if there is a god, please let a pheasant jump up before I get to the end of the row. If one jumps, I will know you exist and that you hear my prayer. Please, God, a pheasant

before the end of the row."

Telly walked deliberately. He held his gun in his hands, his right thumb and index finger pressing the bolt that would cock the weapon. He had practiced the procedure hundreds of times, even in his sleep when he pulled the Stevens close to his body under the blankets. At the first sign of game he would pull back the bolt, raise the .410 to his shoulder, point/aim slightly in front of the bird, and, as he pulled the trigger, keep leading the animal so the shot would not fall behind. Telly was ready for the biggest cock pheasant in the county.

Telly knew that the reason the prayer popped into his awareness was because of a similar experience he'd had three years before. His parents, devout atheists, had kept him in a spiritual void. Telly was virtually ignorant of even the names of the religions, and had heard almost no mention of figureheads or titles of their scriptures at school. Yet he had an inexplicable feeling in his heart that there was something, some force, some presence, some thing more than his own heart possessed whenever he wanted something.

Three years ago the five year-old was pushing his scooter down the edge of the dusty, country road he lived on. Just as his cat stepped out to cross, a 4x4 pickup swerved around the corner, shifted into high gear, and roared forward. Stinky didn't have a chance. He was mangled by mid-road. It happened so fast that Telly couldn't process it. With no feeling whatever, he stared at his lifeless pet. As if he were planting an acorn, he buried the yellow-striped animal in the orchard. Then, leaning on the shovel, he spontaneously said, "God, if there is a god, the death doesn't matter, does it? 'Cause Stinky isn't any more dead than me. He's alive and always will be, won't he?" No sooner had the last word left his Kindergarten-mouth than the boy felt the sun bright on his forehead, and

he knew, in the non-wording of his heart, that God had answered him in the affirmative.

Now as Telly walked down the vineyard, the memory of Stinky came back to him. And his primitive, heart-felt prayer came as spontaneously as that beautiful moment three years before. But the hunter dismissed all thoughts as he prepared for the possible pheasant ahead.

Telly's eyes widened, his ears strained, his breath slowed. In that moment of just-before-something-happens, another thought raced through his highly alert mind. "What if there is no pheasant ahead, but there is a god, and he wanted to show me he was real, would he make a bird appear out of nowhere?"

The boy smiled when he realized he was putting God to the test. He knew that God would exist whether he played his little game or not, but on the other hand, this was a chance for the Almighty to really prove that He really did exist.

Telly was now three-fourths down the row and there was no sign of a bird. He felt a pang in his heart. Then he sensed just as quickly as the memory of Stinky that this hunt was a set-up: That God did, indeed, exist, had let his father gave him the gun, had placed him in the vineyard just then, and had planted in his mind the thought of testing God all for a reason. There had to be a pheasant in the last few steps. There had to be whether there was or not.

Telly's heart screamed, "There has to be a pheasant, God, there has to be!"

At the height of the boy's expectation, not one pheasant, but a mother and her thirteen babies, darted from under the brush and scurried straight down the row. Well-trained, the hunter immediately pulled back the bolt, raised the weapon, and point/aimed at the column of fleeing birds. He

knew it would take a split second to mow the entire family down with just one squeeze of the trigger.

His mind went blank. He was without thought, void of feeling, possessed no intention. Only when he lowered the .410 did he verbalize. "Shooting them is downright murder. They should at least fly so there's a sporting chance."

Then his unworded heart spoke. It told him that God had answered his prayer. That God existed. That there wasn't just a single pheasant when he had the desire but fourteen! Telly smiled victoriously. On his first solo hunt he had bagged over a dozen birds plus God, and all by his faith.

When Telly was older, he rubbed shoulders with New Age thinking. The prevalent thought the young man was exposed to was that man was born as co-creators with God. That whatever desire man had, if it was acceptable by God, the Universal Intelligence would support it, would help it manifest.

Though Telly had never entertained any formal religion because of his parents, intuitively and experientially he knew the like-minded seekers were right. Though he'd never experienced anything as dramatically as the forehead-warmth after Stinky's death or the realization when the pheasants ran, still Telly had faith that whenever he had a profound desire, one that pulsated in his heart, that was so real that it called on God Himself, the Almighty would respond.

The opportunity to test his mid-age faith came when he realized that he wanted to own a farm of his own and raise goats. The man had no money, had no experience with the animals though a great deal with the creatures

on his father's farm, but he sensed that he wanted this at least as much as he'd wanted a pheasant to appear fifteen years before.

Telly prepared himself as if he had the farm already. Deep down he knew he would get it, though he had no idea how. He read six books about goats. He subscribed to a monthly magazine. He searched the county for a proper piece of land. He asked the 4-H people if they had knowledge of anyone who raised goats. He contacted a goat farm and visited it.

Then Telly made lists of what he would do with his herd. He would drink the milk and sell it. He would make yogurt and cheese and sell the animals as pets. He knew one sport team that wanted one as a mascot. Several farmers had expressed a desire to own a goat to keep the weeds down, a man in town needed the milk for his ulcer, and two children were allergic to cow's milk. He would even sell some to the race-horse breeders because he'd learned that goats calm the high-strung animals. Telly Rathsom spent three years preparing for his new career by gaining knowledge, but not a minute to obtain funds.

"How in God's name," said his atheistic father ironically, "do you expect to start a business without a single cent? Money doesn't grow on trees, you know. You have to earn it."

Telly couldn't tell his father what his heart felt because he could barely understand it himself, but deep down he knew that God had spoken to him twice, and this was the next big test. Planting the desire to acquire the funds for the purchase of the land and all the equipment, plus a herd of registered animals, was God's way of testing Telly's faith, and his way of proving to everyone that He existed and answered prayers, too.

Then, in that already-experienced, just-before-something-happens moment before the money did come, Telly Rathsom realized that this, like the pheasant incident, was another set-up, only this time for the boy's

atheist father, not for him. You see, during those three years of preparation, Telly's only answer to his practical and badgering father had been, "I don't know how I'll get the money, Dad, I just know I will." That was the closest he could get to verbalizing his awareness that God existed, that he'd experienced him twice, and that he had faith that he would fulfill the boy's desire this time, too. And because he realized it was a set-up, he knew that the results would be dramatic.

He wasn't disappointed. That very evening three men from St. Louis, well-meaning entrepreneurs who wanted to invest money in a grass-roots project and remain silent partners, introduced themselves to the Rathsom house. As the men unfolded their plan and revealed the amount of preparation they had done before this moment, Telly was amazed, though not altogether surprised.

A hundred acres of land boasting a rocky cliff, ideal for climbing goats, fifteen acres of overgrown saplings for their roughage, pasture for hay, tillable soil to raise oats and barley, an ideal barn with necessary outbuildings. Telly would run the operation and his profits would slowly buy out the investors. The plan would cost the faith-man nothing, yet in thirty years he would own his own farm.

Telly's father listened to the proceedings over coffee at the kitchen table with his mouth ajar, his eyes agape. At first he couldn't believe what he heard, then he thought that his son had staged it, but when the entrepreneurs drove the Rathsom men to the land, the elder realized it was all true. His son had, just as he said he would, get what he wanted without working for it.

Telly couldn't tell his father that he had earned the business, he just hadn't earned money. He knew he'd earned the farm as a reward for his belief and faith in God. He knew he'd passed the faith-test just as God had

upheld his side of their private covenant. Telly had maintained his belief and God had responded.

Now the heart and mind of old Mr. Rathsom was blank. He couldn't process this. When he tried to put it into words, his mind said that miracles don't exist because they're part of the God-package, yet here is a phenomenal, unexplainable COINCIDENCE. He stared at his son for an explanation. All Telly could do was smile, shrug, and say with his heart and eyes, "What did I tell you, Dad?"