Mountain Top Musings

As a little boy people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I am sure everyone has been asked this question. It is a normal thing for people to ask the little ones. With my family being in the excavation business I would often say a crane/dragline/bulldozer/dump truck operator. Around the age of 10 I would say a professional baseball player. In a few years, it was a dentist. Where the dentist idea came from I have no idea! Of course, there would be periods where I wanted to be a fireman or police officer.

Around the age of 15 I started seriously considering becoming a heavy equipment mechanic. I really enjoyed working on the D-8, the 950 front-end loader, tractors, etc. It was tough, dirty and greasy work, but satisfying. My Uncle Bill was a great teacher. Although at times his patience was, well let's say, lacking! However, I got the idea of becoming a forester and that is the path the Lord led me on.

I went to Michigan Technological University, earned a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management and was able to put that training to use for over 28 years. I marked and cruised, planned or administered over 500 million board-feet of timber sales in Oregon, Idaho and Tennessee. That is roughly 100,000 log trucks full of marketable logs. That does not include the various sales I worked on with the U.S. Forest Service for 10 years on the Helena National Forest. Some of those have been the major fire salvage sales since 2001, the roadside hazardous fuel reduction project (which I hated in some ways as it robbed people of some good firewood, but it had some benefits for sure and escaped the litigation insanity of the obstructionists), and many green sales.

The thing is I had a plan and worked it. Sure things changed at times, but there was always a goal. I learned a lot as I went along, skills that help me as a pastor and area missionary. But no matter what job I had along the journey I had to decide each day what type of employee or supervisor I wanted to be. I wanted to be the best at what I did I can truthfully say. I wanted to be productive team player, and support the mission which was practicing sustainable forestry and multiple-use of our public lands. Kind of like some of the football players many of us just watched in Super Bowl 54. Just think of how Andy Reid is feeling this week. He finally won the big show after spending years, really his life, in pursuit of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. His team pulled it off against a tough opponent.

It took work and much pain to be champions. Each player and coach had to decide what they were willing to sacrifice and endure to achieve the goal. As fans we can appreciate that. They had to decide what kind of player and coach they wanted to be. From a last place team to champions in one year! Wow!

As a people and country, we are at a similar cross-roads. What do we want our country to be known for and value? If we are to survive this current state of utter confusion, I think we need to be like a championship team. We need to decide what our objective is. For the USA I think the objective is to follow the ideals and goals of our Founding Fathers as promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I know that is somewhat simplistic, but it is to promote a democratic republic. Not a democracy like ancient Greece, not a socialist state like Venezuela, not a communist state like China or Russia, not a theocratic state as Iran or Saudi Arabia. As we choose our leaders, we need to educate ourselves on the real history of our country, the history of countries who have embraced those other systems and see what the results have been. Then we must decide who or what we want to be. As an old friend Ed Thomas would say, "It's just so simple!" At least that is my take on things this morning. What or who do you want to be in life, and what changes do you need to make?

(Dave & Lisa Carroll are area missionaries with InFaith, America's oldest Christian home mission agency. You can contact Dave at 406.459.8935 or [email protected].)