The Night He Went Into the Woods

Bucky went out at about half past eight on a night in November, and by nine we knew he was not in any of the ordinary places.

The ordinary places are the vegetable patch, the feed store, under the trailer, and the neighbor's orchard, which is not our orchard but which he regards as a shared resource. He was not in any of them. And then Mr. Ames rang to say he had seen a goat crossing the top lane going away from us, which meant the woods.

The woods are not dangerous. I want to say that because it is true. They are just big and they are down a slope and there are old workings in them from before anybody, and nobody goes in there at night because there is no reason to.

My dad had his boots off. He had had his boots off for about forty minutes, which if you know farmers you know is the whole thing. He was in the chair. The fire was going.

He got up and he put his coat back on, and he did not say anything at all about it, and that is the part I want to tell you about. He did not sigh. He did not say that goat's name in the voice. He did not tell me what this was costing him, and it was costing him, because he had been up since half four and had been on the harrow all day.

He said, get me the good flashlight and stay in the house. And then he went out.

He came back at twenty to eleven with Bucky on a rope and his trouser legs wet to the knee, and Bucky came in through the door of that barn like a man arriving home from work.

Nobody made a speech. Dad took his boots off again and sat down again, and I brought him tea because I did not know what else to do, and he said thanks and drank it.

I am nine and I do not know very much. But I know what I watched, and I have been thinking about it since, and I think I know now what it was that I was actually being shown.

He says the name before He says anything else

There is a verse where God tells a whole people not to be afraid, and the order of the reasons He gives is the entire point.

But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. (Isaiah 43:1)

Count what He puts before the comfort. Created you. Formed you. Redeemed you. Called you by your name. And then, last and smallest and heaviest: thou art mine.

He does not lead with what He can do about the situation. He leads with who the person is to Him, which is a different kind of reassurance and a much harder one to argue with at half past eight at night.

You are somebody God has already named out loud, and naming is what He did before He said one word about being afraid. Isaiah 43:1 puts identity in front of comfort, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that order land in a body instead of only in a sentence.

There is a particular fear that a child has and does not say, which is that the going after is a service and services can be withdrawn. That if the trouble goes on long enough, somebody will do the arithmetic.

You have never been the subject of that arithmetic. The written word says thou art mine without a condition attached anywhere in the sentence, and His Spirit is what makes an unconditioned sentence hold in somebody who has been waiting for the condition.

What the shepherd does about the numbers

Jesus tells a story about a man with a hundred sheep and He builds it as a question, which means He expects the answer to be obvious.

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? (Luke 15:4)

The arithmetic in that story is bad. Ninety nine is more than one and any accountant would say so, and the shepherd goes anyway, and the story is told as though everybody listening already agrees that this is what a person does.

And look at the last three words of the question. Until he find it. Not for a while. Not until dark. There is no exit condition in that sentence except finding.

You are being looked for by somebody with no scheduled point at which he stops. Luke 15:4 puts the ending at the finding rather than at the effort, and the Spirit of God is what makes that read as safety rather than as pressure.

And when he finds it, the text does something quietly enormous. He does not drive it home. And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

You have been carried home rather than marched home, and that was decided before you were found. That is what Luke 15 puts on the page rather than what anybody expected, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves it off the page into a house at twenty to eleven.