The right track had come off the excavator, and Sweet Husband and I were doing our best to get it set back right. 

We pushed and pulled, used tree limbs for leverage, and even tried the backhoe to push that stubborn track back into place. We could have wrung out our drawers ten times over by the time we quit. I don’t know how hot hell might be, but if the humidity is anything like it is on our 90 degree plus heat index days, then it’s going to be a torment for sure. 

We got the track close, but it never settled back into the grooves.

It looked so simple. The solution seemed to be clear. Just lift it up and over.

Ever tried lifting a track of an excavator? It does not respond easily to mere human strength. 

It didn’t help that it was down in a bit of a boggy hole. All the rain, combined with the freshly uprooted earth, made for a dirty job. Fresh mud and rainwater can set up to smell like unwiped butt. It’s not the pleasant smell of garden earth, filled with earthworms and other critters gently tilling the soil. 

It was the epitome of a dirty job.

Here lately, just living feels like a dirty job:

In a world where war is celebrated like a high school football pep rally . . .

Where we nonchalantly say that people get what they deserve, and it’s just too bad, such a shame, that children have to go along on their parents’ bad ride . . .

Where we justify hatred to others in the same way we tear down our classmates in middle school.

It feels like our track has come off, and we’re stuck in some putrid mud.

This world is a cesspool, and the only hope we have to make sense of it all comes from following the most important commandments. 

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:36-40 ESV

And who is my neighbor?

If I were to list them all, it might offend you. That wouldn’t exactly be loving my neighbor, so I will politely decline.

Say I’m a bleeding heart, but we who call ourselves Christians need to do better. If you’re not a Christian, you’re off the hook. Go out and raise all manner of hell, but even you might get some good from singing a happy song.

Working on the excavator, catching a glimpse of the news while getting a drink of water, and then running with my darting dog inspired me. Make up your own tune, but the rhythm is like jogging with Gypsy dog or working a limb under the wayward track of an excavator.

After a few minutes of singing it, during the fading light of day, after sweating what felt like the last bits of hydration from my body, all while seeing the first of the evening’s lightning bugs, I felt like I got my off-kilter track back on straight, if only for a little while.

But it wasn’t just me. 

For it takes more than mere human strength to set a track right again.

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Our God said to love everybody,
Our God said to love everybody,
Our God said to love everybody.
And it’s His job to sort us out.
Not yours.
Not mine.
Leave that alone and you’ll be fine!

So it’s our job to love everybody,
It’s our job to love everybody,
It’s our job to love everybody.
We love our neighbors as ourselves.
God said
It’s true. 
And one more thing that we should do!

It’s our job to tell everybody,
It’s our job to tell everybody,
It’s our job to tell everybody
That God loves them so.
He loves
Us all.
And on His name we need to call!

Our God said to love everybody,
So it’s our job to love everybody,
And it’s our job to tell everybody
That God loves them so.
That God loves them so.