Eternal Existence With God

After we toured author William Faulkner’s home, I asked students in my creative writing class how the great writer felt about mankind’s capacity for endurance, to which a student replied, “He summed it in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature: ‘I believe man will not merely endure; he will prevail.’” Another great thinker, my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird defined man’s capacity for endurance by living it, day by day. When I was ten years old, my father, a Mississippi Delta farmer, turned me over to the old black man and told him to teach me how to work. I didn’t even know what endurance meant, and certainly didn’t have enough of it to withstand long workdays. I learned; Jaybird saw to that.

Jaybird defined man’s capacity for endurance by living it, day by day

Few tasks test one’s endurance more than hoeing weeds out of cotton. Enduring sweat, dust, monotony, humidity, and the pitiless gaze of an unrelenting sun, Jaybird and I spent many long days working our way down seemingly endless rows. With patience but not pity, Jaybird helped me catch up when I lagged behind. “You might as well get used to hard work, boy,” he would say. “It will be the biggest part of your life, and if you face it like a man, the best part.” Then, he would return to his own row, quietly singing a favorite ditty: “We have come a long way togeth-o, but we got a long way to go, though.” One day while we were hoeing, Jaybird was limping. When I commented that he had a “hitch in his get-along”, he responded, “Naw, it’s just a rock in my shoe.” Confused, I asked why he didn’t remove it. He shrugged and said he would when we got to the end of the row. “If I had something in my shoe, I would dump it out right now.” Chuckling, he said, “Then you wouldn’t have something to look forward to.”

Jaybird was a man of unfaltering Christian faith

Years passed before I understood what he meant. Because he was a man of unfaltering Christian faith, Jaybird viewed life as a process leading to something to look forward to. From that premise, he developed the ability to make onerous tasks endurable, even the drudgery of hoeing weeds. When we reached the end of the rows, he dipped a cool drink from the water keg, drank his fill, sat down, removed the rock, tossed it to me, and sighed, “Lord, that feels so much better. Let’s get back to work, boy. We’ve got a long way to go before sundown.” So many of Jaybird’s teachings are imprinted in my mind, especially his lessons about enduring and prevailing. Recently, while rummaging through a desk drawer, I found the old cigarette case that was in his shirt pocket on the day he collapsed and died of a heart attack that ended his long, well-spent life. Inside, I found the rock he removed from his shoe and tossed to me. It symbolized the goal of his earthly journey: eternal existence with God.