Sawing Up Uncle Charlie

My father is fond of saying that Uncle Charlie was never the same after they sawed him up.

The "they" in this statement refers to my Grandpa Joe and my father, Morgan. "Uncle Charlie" was some type of relative. In my family, one learned early in life not to ask how certain uncles or cousins were actually related. Questions like that led to long explanations that children below the age of sixteen had neither the patience nor the intellectual ability to understand.

During The Great Depression Morgan and Joe were rip-sawing logs with Uncle Charlie in the woods on the western side of Grandpa's farm. They had set up the saw using a belt coming off the tractor which rotated a large, round saw blade. In the course of their work, Uncle Charlie's flannel shirt got caught between the belt and the axle of the saw, and he was flipped around violently.

My grandfather and father did what they could. They loaded Uncle Charlie's broken body into the back of the car and drove the 16 miles into Rochester, Minnesota, where the hospital had one of those fancy new x-ray machines. Looking at the broken old man lying before them, the doctors decided to x-ray his whole body.

When the film had been developed and analyzed, the doctors said, "Mr. Carlson, you have a bullet in your head!" Uncle Charlie responded, "Huh! Years ago I got shot in the head, but there was so much blood that I thought the bullet had gone clean through." Now, you just have to think there is something fishy behind that kind of statement.

Unfortunately, the state of medical expertise in the 1930's was such that it was impossible to remove the bullet. Uncle Charlie went to his grave with it still firmly lodged in his head.

Now, how that bullet came to be in Uncle Charlie's head is the source of several stories in our family. I am not sure any of them are true. The long and the short of it is that he either had bad luck in his choice of hunting partners or bad luck at cards. Either way, a man with a bullet in his head who gets sawed up by his nephew is not someone you invite to buy your next lottery ticket.

I thought of Uncle Charlie because of a conversation I had this week. As I remembered this old family story, a verse came to mind which we’d all do well to pay attention to. In Luke 12:2, Jesus said, "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known."

A big crowd had gathered while Jesus condemned the Pharisees and Scribes. Any debate will draw a crowd. That is why people watch "talking heads" on CNN and FOX News. However, in this case I think that people were also drawn by Jesus' fearless denunciation of their hypocritical leaders. Turning to His disciples, Jesus warned, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

A hypocrite is someone that wears a mask - one whose outward appearance is different from the inner reality. The Pharisees acted like they had their moral and spiritual lives together, but they were really masters of deceit.

Jesus was saying in effect, "Someday they will all be revealed for who they are. Some day their secrets (like bullets in the brain) will be made known to everyone. There will be no hiding of the truth."

I talk a lot about the importance of being an authentic disciple of Jesus Christ. Like other missionaries, pastors, and Christian workers, I need to be aware that it is easy to allow my inner reality to become different from the public message. I need to be careful with that. I never know when the secrets in my head will become public information.