From my heart to yours: Man or Legend? ...how sweet...

We may never be able to put certain events into words. This fact ought to make our memories and our lives even more precious. But too often, we don’t even stop to mark such events in our minds. We are too busy living them to realize that we won’t pass that way again, ever.
We buried Peg on the first day of spring, 2007. After ninety-three years of life in one place, he left Leota alone. And who was Peg anyway? To a stranger, it may sound like that same old story: the community mourns the loss of an old timer. Gee, that’s a shame. Or, have we all witnessed the passing of an era? Were we saying farewell to a legend of a man that day…or just seeing an old timer out of this world? If we were honest with ourselves, we’d have to say we don’t know. I myself feel caught between the two.

You see, I grew up thinking of Peg as a hero. I was born on his birthday. We like strawberry shortcake and whipped cream for a birthday cake. The last special day we celebrated together was my nineteenth and his ninety-first. That was the human side. The legend side of him was stories of wild cattle and horses, and untamed country, and family, and dangers the modern world doesn’t experience anymore. Peg was a big man. I remember seeing him and hoping against hope that some day I might marry a man who stood as straight and tall as him. Big and quiet and gentle. And strong. That was Peg to me. I remember him like that.
I never saw him ride or work cows. I didn’t see the daring feats he told about, but I believed every word he said. Something in his eyes convinced me that he wouldn’t lie to me. I remember seeing him at the grocery store or at the fair or the Fourth of July, and even though I was too shy to come up and say hello, I’d watch him. He was a real man. Believe me, growing up in this generation, I know those when I meet them. They are a rare breed.
Shall we put him down as just another old timer, an average guy who lived a good life? Or shall we say Peg Pfingsten was no ordinary man, that he was a man above the rest, a great man whose brethren have filled the pages of history books?
And, let me ask you, what if we dared to say he was both of those things? What would that mean for us? It would mean that our lives matter. It would mean that everything we do counts for something. If Peg was both man and legend, then character really does count. That would imply that every human being we come across deserves a chance, deserves to be honored as a person. That would mean that our ordinary, everyday lives really aren’t ordinary at all. Our neighbors and friends and even strangers are not just people we can label and dismiss-they are people who are great in their own way. After all, that’s how Peg and Leota treated me.
Since we are supposing for the moment that Peg was both man and legend, we can take this just a bit further, because it implies something else. It implies that no one of us is better than somebody else. We are all standing on level ground, and the height we acquire as we grow through life, accomplishing and accumulating, really doesn’t count. It isn’t what we look like and what we do, but who we are and how we live. Peg had the courage to live as if his life counted. Something that comes clearer and clearer to me as I write is that Peg didn’t live how he did so that he would get everyone to hail him as great. He did it because that was who he was, because the approval of people wasn’t worth near as much as the approval of God.
Honestly, folks, I think that’s the truth for all of us. In a few years, Peg’s grave will be covered with grass and he’ll be a distant memory. Someday, all the ones who remember him will be gone and he’ll be forgotten. Mankind has a short memory. But God? God sees everything. God sees who we are and how we live. I don’t know about you, but if God is good enough to love us like he does, it makes sense to be who He made you to be.

Peg’s life has shed more light on the character of God than a lot of books I’ve read. Because God knows we are all equal (He knows this better than we do, and you can take that to the bank.), he knows that one good deed or a thousand isn’t going to put us a step higher than anybody else. That must be why His Son died on the Cross. When God sees us through Jesus’ sacrifice, we can be who we are and God approves. Without Jesus, though, who we are or try to be is nothing special. It can’t honor God…and I think that’s what makes it easy to forget how valuable people are. I think that when we live without accepting Jesus’ love, we are common and ordinary. There’s no heavenly light spilling out of our way of living. It’s just dull man-made goodness that never gets brighter than a hot coal. In the end it turns to ash.
Peg’s life seemed different because it glowed with a brilliance not its own. A light came out of him that brought out the God-colors in this world. I know this first hand. When I was a teenager, the misconceptions I had about myself and my life shadowed me like a dark cloud. What was I going to be? Where would I go to college? I’ll never be worth anything…I’m not pretty like so-n’-so…the list goes on. On my seventeenth birthday, Peg and Leota were there. And they smiled, said very little, but loved very much. Thinking back, knowing they thought enough of me to come spoke louder than any inspirational speaker or self-esteem counselor could have. They didn’t mention my blowing money mostly every weekend at rodeos, or ask what my major was going to be. They just loved me for who I was. And isn’t that kind of like God, who offers us the rich gift of His Son just because He loves us? …Amazing grace, how sweet…
Peg Pfinkston. A man. A legend. I wonder what God calls him?