Saddles and Parachutes

We were driving past a new little commercial sector near our house and I saw that one of the businesses coming soon was a Saddlery.
I mentioned it to Bill and he immediately began talking about a saddle he’d once owned. It was beautiful black leather and was made slightly smaller than a typical western saddle as if was designed especially for Arabians. At that time he had a gorgeous white Arabian named Tex. Tex was retired carriage horse that Bill trained for a saddle. He’s long since gone to horse heaven or wherever the souls of such creatures go.
The saddle is gone as well. Thieves broke into the tack room and stole it. Bill sounded mad about it as he remembered.
I tried to be philosophical. We live in town now. He no longer has horses, so he would have gotten rid of the saddle anyway.
Bill agreed. He had other saddles, all of which he sold or gave away years ago. He doesn’t even remember what happened to them. So what was so special about the Arabian saddle?
It was beautiful, of course. But truly what makes it memorable was having it stolen.
There is something about us, something in human nature, that absolutely decries injustice. When we see something wrong, we rarely can keep our mouth shut about it. That’s a very good thing. This compulsion to stand up for what is right and what is fair has been irrevocably woven into the fabric of our civilization.
And if it doesn’t resolve, which happens so often, we can never actually let go.
At this point I can almost hear my dad’s deep bass voice admonishing me with a useful piece of working class wisdom, "You might as well just get over that."
He was right, of course. But it’s never that easy. Not even for him. Remember that story I told you about the bad sorghum. (Check out MORSI MOVIE REVIEW from July 15th). However, I think making the effort to just chalk it up to experience and move on is worth it.
So this week, when we look at all the trouble on Wall Street and we get so riled up about what these knot-heads have done with their unsatiable greed and golden parachutes, I think we may all just have to take a deep breath. We have to get over being mad about it and try to figure out what the next step should be.
It’s going to take a smarter person than me to answer that question. But at least I won’t be wasting my passion and brain power on low-life thieves. I’m going to let justice be meted out by heaven, where they have much more experience with that sort of thing.