Butts & Grudges

Since my mom was in town for part of the weekend to spend time with the grand kids, Jeff and I got a chance to head out on a Southern Utah daytrip.

In total we drove down south about 4-5 hours to Calf Creek which is between Boulder and Escalante. It is a beautiful trail that follows a creek back a couple of miles to a waterfall. Before we even drove down I knew I wouldn't make it the entire way to the waterfall because unfortunately a 4 mile round trip hike in sand is too much for me. Jeff and I hiked around a bit and then drove on a back country road called the "Devil's Backbone". Even though I've never lived here this desert country feels like home, and it was good to be back even if only for a few hours. We initially left home at 5:45am and arrived back around 7:30pm.

On these long drives we usually don't talk a ton but will listen to a book on tape. This trip wasn't any different, although there were a couple of conversations which stood out.

One story Jeff shared came from a mission companion. While this guy was in high school he was on the basketball team. One day the coach was really upset and was just chewing the team out. In his frustration the coach yelled, "you've got to pull your butts out of your heads!!!" Jeff's friend thought this was funny (although he wisely didn't laugh) because of course what the angry coach meant to say was "you've got to pull your head out of your butt." Which is a rather rude way of saying "get your act together."

Later on I was relating to Jeff an experience I had last summer. I was visiting my parents and sister and we took the kids to a place called Willow Park. While there I saw an individual I hadn't seen in years. Background: This person and I were 2 people out of 5 who had worked for an extended time period on a group project during college. Short story is that there was a tremendous amount of unnecessary DRAMA surrounding this group. In the end I was quite happy to have moved on. Or I thought I had moved on. But 11 years later, once my brain registered who it was, I played the "I don't see you game" and tried to avoid her. Turns out I had been holding a grudge FOR YEARS and never realized it until that moment. In looking back I really wish we would have talked.

I have done a fair amount of grudge holding in my life...and I'm trying to get past it.

This story has an end!
And it is this: Holding a grudge and the phrase
"pull your butt out of your head!"
have 3 things in common:

1- Both take a lot of effort.
2- Both are a waste of time.
3- Neither one really makes any sense.

In the center of this photo you can see a teenage kid standing on a rock. He and some family had spent the previous 4 days riding 4-wheelers around Utah back country. They were visiting from Kansas.