The Journey Continues: What shapes our world view?

My friend, John Rush, has a vacation home on the river in Gruene.

John sees a dichotomy of world views in his neighborhood.

On one side, his neighbor loves squirrels. He feeds them and keeps predators of squirrels – cats – out of his yard.

His neighbor on the other side hates squirrels because he is a bird watcher so he uses a bb gun and traps to keep them out of his feeders.

The squirrel-lover feeds them while the squirrelhater takes caged squirrels to the river “for a swim.”

How is world view formed? Why is it important?

Our values, emotions, attitudes and ethics are guided by our world view and in my case it is a composite of my journey.

Yet small events can have great impact.

More than 50 years ago my world view was impacted by a man I worked with on a bridge/ road construction job in a remote area of west Texas.

Our assigned task was the placement of 40- foot rebar that required a two-man team.

One afternoon, my partner was missing. It was very unusual for someone to miss half a day because of the great distance traveled to the worksite.

The next morning out of unmotivated curiosity, I asked, “Mr. Hernandez where were you yesterday afternoon?”

He replied, “Jim, I wasn’t here.”

I continued, “I know you weren’t here, but where were you?”

His reply was short but pierced my heart and has influenced my spirit to this day. “Jim, I had to go home early yesterday afternoon to bury my daughter.”

That was all he needed to say. Implicitly he said so much more.

Although he was working, he wasn’t making much money.

Mr. Hernandez was a follower of Jesus and took pride in providing for his family. They spent Sunday afternoons in church fellowship.

He loved and was loved.

One of the techniques used by our employer was to keep our wages secret so we would not know what each other was earning.

At that time, the federal wage was $1.10/ hour and that was just exactly what I received.

If it stormed, we would all seek cover under the work truck, and yes, our pay would be docked for the exact time we weren’t working.

I went back to college in the fall with a new attitude toward the working man.

As a pastor, I often quote from 1 Timothy 5:8: “And whoever does not provide for relatives and especially family members has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”