For the last number of weeks I’ve been seeing groundhogs in the field across the creek behind our property, and a few more as I walk along the road through farmland. A lot of memories are stirred when I see the critters—some things we did to keep them out of the fields on the dairy farm in Southern Ohio—and some childhood memories that were less than pleasant. It’s interesting how the sighting of a common rodent can trigger a chain of thoughts that go all the way back to bedtime on the farm at Elida, Ohio—the place of my earliest memories, and my first prayer.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Painting by Eastman Johnson.
This was my first bedtime prayer. It must have been taught to me when I was three or four years old. It was a good habit to begin early in life. But it scared me. I was afraid to go to sleep. The prayer brought up the possibility of dying before morning—something I didn’t want to think about. What little kid wants to lay his head down on his pillow and worry about dying? I didn’t want the Lord to take my soul. Not yet. I had a lot of living and growing up to do, and besides, I didn’t want to go anywhere without my parents or brothers.
It was a common child’s bedtime prayer, but I didn’t teach it to my own children for the reason already mentioned. I only recently learned that there are other versions that are much more comforting—versions that don’t mention death. A kid shouldn’t have to think about that in their last moments before sleep comes.
Somewhere along the line, besides the possibility of dying, I learned there were other things that needed to be feared, and my prayer grew longer.
“Lord, please protect us from lions and tigers and bears.”
Then, as more time passed, I heard about even more.
“And from robbers and kidnappers and murderers.”
And then I learned that I was a sinner.
“And forgive me for all my sins, Amen.”
There was plenty to fear, and it was good to pray about it. That’s how it is when you’re a child, and you start hearing about all the things out there that can get you hurt or killed, and worse yet, that we’re sinners, and those who continue to sin will be met with a very frightening end. It really scared me. A lot.
Sometime early in life, I learned that Jesus was going to come back, and those who had accepted Him as their Saviour would immediately go to be with him—meeting Him in the air—and everyone else would be left behind. It took a while for this to really sink home, but when it did, the full implications were frightening. The big issue was sin. I was probably around the age of seven or eight when I became fully convinced that I was a sinner, and the chances of being left behind loomed ever larger . I accepted Jesus over and over and constantly asked Him to forgive me for this and that, and even for things I may have forgotten. But I knew I would probably forget some sin, and maybe even sin right at the last moment—one second before He came back—and I’d be left behind to starve to death and eventually end up in the place of eternal torment. It terrified me.
But then I remembered hearing that Jesus wouldn’t come back when anyone was expecting him. So I took to expecting him at every moment. It became an obsession. As long as I was expecting him, I wouldn’t have to worry that it would happen. It was a big load for a little boy to carry—this preventing Jesus’ return. But I believed it. Really, I did. So pitiful was my understanding.
Sadly, the childhood fears were private fears. It wasn’t possible to talk about these things with anyone else. No one would understand. Surely all the adults in my world had it all together, and were saints, and could not conceive how one little boy was tormented with sins and thoughts like this. That’s the thing about us introverts. We’re born that way, you know, and we live in our heads—and some things we keep to ourselves. It would be quite a while until these fears mellowed out. I learned to trust that God was not waiting to pounce on His children, but wanting to walk alongside us, gently reminding us of our failures, and picking us up again when we fell. No different than a loving parent who is always there for their children—loving them and helping them to grow and mature.
But there were some other things to worry about. Night-time was definitely the worst. We slept upstairs in the old farmhouse. At the top of the stairs, we’d make a left-hand u-turn, head back the hall, and into the bedroom that four of us shared. That was the one consolation. I wasn’t alone. There were two double beds, and each bed held two boys. Stan and Wes slept in one, and Gene and I in the other. The arrangement was okay, I guess, except there were issues of crowding, and we knew exactly where the center line in the bed was, and no one had better cross it. But at the same time, it was nice to have brothers nearby.
Of course, in the tossing and turning of sleep, the line became blurred. Worse yet, I remember waking up wet on occasion. When two boys sleep together, and the big wet spot is in the center of the bed, and both boys are wet—who did it!? I blamed him. I wasn’t a bed-wetter, at least not that I knew of.
One night I had a terrifying dream. It was so real, that it altered the arrangement of my grey-matter for the duration of our time in that house. At the top of the stairs there was a room that belonged to the oldest brother, Dick. Never mind that he had a room to himself, and the rest of us shared a room—although this did seem strange. The worst thing was that he kept an angry ground-hog under his bed. I learned this by accident one night while sound asleep in a world of scarey dreams. In this dream, I was headed up the stairs to go to bed, and just as I passed Dick’s doorway, a crazed groundhog came charging out from under his bed, prepared to do battle with my bare feet and legs. It’s large teeth were snapping and clattering, and a vicious growl emanated from its throat as it ran towards me. It was all so vivid! And it was one of those dreams where it is impossible to run. The legs and feet are suddenly so powerless—they might as well be encased in five-gallon buckets of concrete. I barely escaped the massive rodent. In the middle of the terror, I woke up panting and sweating, and discovered that one of my legs was hanging over the edge of the bed. But now I imagined that the groundhog was under my bed, and even the slightest movement would mean that my dangling foot would be ripped to shreds.
I let my motionless leg hang there until it was unbearable, then in a flash, yanked it under the covers and held my breath. The groundhog remained in place. But now I had to pee.
This brought a new element to my predicament. The house was silent—my brothers all sound asleep—and I lay in terror with bladder nearly bursting. Desperation calls for desperate measures, and an unthinkable thought crossed my mind—I could wet the bed on my brother’s side, and he would take the blame. No, I couldn’t do that. I could wake my brother to go with me, or I could go back to sleep. I somehow managed to go back to sleep, and morning soon came, and the bladder that had been squeezed by fear, held out.
The angry creature remained under Dick’s bed for another year or two until we moved to a different house. We parted ways then—the groundhog and I—and I never feared him again. Nothing left of the imaginary rodent but a memory that can be recaptured in my head at any time—more than fifty years later.
But what about the groundhogs out in the fields right at this moment? No doubt they’re descendants of rabid, mutant, boy-eating, bedroom dwellers, but right now they’re calmly feasting on fresh, lush alfalfa, looking good—as good as a groundhog can look, that is. Can’t really say they’re a lovely creature, and I don’t really know what their purpose is, except that some people eat them, and others use the hide for shoe laces and banjo heads. Not kidding.
Other than the holes they dig, groundhogs are pretty harmless creatures, and it would be nice to have a peaceful coexistence with them. However—not wanting to sound malicious here—I have yet to ascertain what good can come from mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, and groundhogs—unless we go back to that banjo thing. You see, the problem is that for the folks who produce our food, the holes that the groundhogs make are a hazard. So we need to respect and think kindly of those who must necessarily find ways to deal with them.
Alright then, enough rambling from the Jericho Road suburbs of Kidron, Ohio. It’s been a busy week for the men and women around here, mowing, gardening, planting flowers, mulching, and sprucing our places up. The kids are a big help, when they’re not playing ball. It’s warm outside—just what we were longing for—and there’s an ice cream treat calling my name. Hope you have a great weekend, and sweet dreams!
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