They Were Muddy!

My husband was speaking to a student who was struggling with a title for her dissertation.  He asked about the subject matter.  She replied that her subject was Peasants in Medieval times.  Nyle's quick response was to my mind an excellent title.  He suggested that she entitle it, "Peasant's, They Were Muddy."

Now moving sharply forward several hundred years we have "Mormon Pioneers, They Were Muddy."  Those pioneers left home and family to come to Utah.  They had endured mobbings, their leaders had been murdered and they had been forced out of one city after another.

In 1847 a group of pioneers came to a lovely mountainous place in Utah.  Imagine how disappointed they were to find that the two most abundant building supplies were rocks, and mud.  There were trees but they were way up high in the mountains.  The trees up high were scrub oak and pine, neither an ideal material for building homes, churches, and other types of buildings. 

When they began to plow the fields to provide food for the next winter they again found enormous quantities of rocks, small to large.  They spent great periods of time removing rocks.  So the piles of rocks began to pile up.

These pioneers were not just muddy they were innovative.  They said, "Hey we have rocks and mud.  Why don't we use those materials to build?"  Voila (OK, most of the pioneers did not speak French but if they did they would use that word), walls, houses, rock gardens, all sorts of creative methods of using rocks and mud developed.

Is anyone reading this asking themselves, "Ummmm....what is she trying to discuss with those muddy peasants and pioneers?"  I promise that at long last I am coming to the point of my Post.

Pioneers and peasants shared one thing in common besides the letter P at the beginning of those titles.  They worked HARD.  In fact in the dictionary next to HARD I believe it states, "The way that muddy Peasants and Pioneers worked."  They also needed a great amount of patience and vision to see past the drawbacks, and envision a future for a place that had mostly rocks and mud and little else.

How amazed those pioneers would be to see the beautiful town that has grown up where once there was mostly only rocks and mud.  There are thousands of people living in beautiful mansions (which still use rocks and mud, just on a grander scale). 

When we are stuck in the minute to minute existence of life do we ever stop and envision what a difference our life will make to the future?  Are we using the things that have been put before us to make our lives better?  Are we busily counting our blessings instead of bemoaning our struggles?

So the next time all you can see is "Rocks and Mud," think of those muddy peasants and pioneers.  While they worked on the future they were thinking about you.