Hearts in Nature

What a beautiful afternoon, thought Sam. The trees filtered the sun and kept the forest nice and cool. He so enjoyed these walks with his son. Billy was skipping through the piles of leaves next to the trail. Sam couldn't help but smile at his son's playful nature. Suddenly, Billy tripped over a stone, hidden under the leaves. Sam froze and waited to see how his son would react. Billy's yell sounded more of aggravation than pain. This showed on his face when Billy sat up. Sam asked his son, "That stone was pretty hard, wasn't it?" Billy replied with a very high pitched, "shoot, yeah!" Sam noticed a change on Billy's face.

"Son, what's on your mind?"

Billy sat there a second rubbing the dirt off his knees. "Dad, what did the preacher mean by being hard hearted?"

The pride was obvious in Sam's smile. Sam started looking around. He eventually found what he was looking for. "Billy, follow me."

Billy immediately got up and followed his father. As they approached an old log, Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out his multi-tool. You could see the fascination on Billy's face as he watched his dad open the tool and pull out the miniature saw blade. Billy watched his dad's every move as he sawed off one of the few branches still attached to the old log. The saw cut through easily at first. As the blade reached the middle, it was obvious that Sam had to work harder. When Sam had completely removed the branch, he presented the cut end to Billy.

"Billy, do you see how soft and rotten the outside of this branch is." Sam squeezed the branch and the rotten bark gave way very easy. A brown liquid oozed from it.

"EWWW! That's cool," squealed, Billy. Sam chuckled.

"Now." Sam redirected with a tap of his blade on the hard core of the branch. "Can you see how hard the center is? Go ahead, touch it."

"OK?" Replied, Billy, a bit surprised at how hard the center was.

"You see, Billy, a hard hearted person is like this branch. They are kind of rotten and mean to the people around them. Now what makes them hard hearted is when somebody punishes them, they don't learn the lesson. They don't stop being mean."

"Kinda like Jamie, at school, huh Dad?"

"Jamie is a bit of a bully, son. He is young. He still has time to change."

Sam reached up and grabbed a limb with leaves still on it. After he had sawed it off, he showed it to Billy.

"A healthy person is like this branch." The tip of Sam's knife easily penetrated the center of the branch.

"The heart is soft and it is easy to do stuff to it. But, the outside is tough so that the heart has enough protection." Sam tapped on the bark of the branch with his multi-tool.

"In other words, a healthy person is soft hearted enough to learn from punishment but tough enough to not get mad at someone for correcting them."

Sam watched his son for a few seconds. He could tell Billy was thinking.

"Dad, is that why you are always telling me I pout too much?"

Sam grinned as he put away his multi-tool, "That's right, Billy."

Sam leaned to his left and popped Billy on his back side with the branch. Sam quickly turned, dropped the branch and tried to run. "Hey!" Billy yelled as he turned and quickly jumped on his father's back. Their laughter could be heard throughout the forest. The lesson was over and the wrestling match was on.