In 1977 my father bought 35 acres of land just outside my hometown of Pittsburg, Kansas. I think he bought it with the idea in mind that he would raise a small herd of cattle to make a little extra money, maybe as some kind of tax write off, or more likely as a solitary reprieve from us four children. I’m not sure because my father wasn’t a rancher, he was a lawyer and the only herd I ever saw there amounted to four or five cows. I don’t believe one can classify that as a herd. We had more dogs around the house, and I thought of those cows more as pets, or eventual steaks and hamburgers in our garage “deep-freeze” than a microcosm of the beef processing industry. 

In any case, it was a beautiful piece of property with a balanced mix of grassy meadows, mature trees, and two ponds. The larger pond sat in a flat open area roughly 300 yards from the front gate. It was the shallow, muddy pond our “herd” used to quench their thirsts and cool their hides when the August heat sweltered. 

The second pond was tucked away in a heavily wooded section of the land, encircled with a raised embankment to contain its contents. Due to the incline, then steep drop into its deeper water, the circumference’s rampart discouraged the cattle, and it became an undisturbed and quiet oasis I often used to fish. With a diameter of maybe 60 or 70 yards, it wasn’t a particularly big body of water, but it was much more beautiful than the other cloudy and hoof-dotted water source the cows had called “dibs” on.  Nestled in the heart of the property, the second pond was hidden amongst Bur and Shumard Oaks, Red Maple trees, Hackberry’s, and a spattering of Evergreens. Its water was dark, but clear and generally very still due to the wind protection it received from the canopied forest that surrounded it.

In 1977 I was thirteen years old and often rode my bike five or six miles from our house to the ranch to fish in that little pond or hunt squirrels with a .22 caliber rifle. On days I pedaled the route with a fishing rod and small tackle box, then trudged the dusty path from the front gate to the pond, it must have been reminiscent of a scene from “Huckleberry Finn”, or “The Andy Griffith Show”. Huck, shirtless in overalls, sporting the wide brimmed straw hat, cane pole in hand, and a harmless mischief in his excitable eyes. Or Opie walking the dirt road in a short-sleeved striped shirt, jeans, red ball cap, and toting the newest rod and reel he bought at the five and dime after saving his odd job money for a year. A boy, innocent and naïve “as all get-out” while the narrator whistled a tune that’s still stuck in every head that grew up in the seventies! 

Pittsburg, KS was not as small as St. Petersburg, Missouri or Mayberry, North Carolina (both fictional towns), but it had its similarities and was a very real place. I, unfortunately, had the worst of each boy’s traits; mischievousness and naivety. That part was non-fiction.

Other days, when squirrel hunting was on the agenda, I’d ride down Main Street, by the small college, the 15-store enclosed indoor mall, and a couple of churches with my rifle slung over my shoulder, bouncing up and down as I pumped the peddles. In 1977 in southeast Kansas, no one looked twice at an early teen on his bike, toting a rifle across town. It was nothing out of the ordinary. If that was today, I’d be in a grainy picture or video on the internet with a cop’s knee on my back and my face pressed against the asphalt awaiting handcuffs, interrogation, then therapy.  The only squirrels would be the ones they believed were running around in my head! Back then there were no such deterrents, and I loved fishing and hunting on that land. As I grew older, I used it for more nefarious reasons, of which, I’m certain, my parents were fully aware! 

Fall was my favorite time of year to visit the property. The cool, crisp air, the brilliant reds, yellows, oranges, purples, and golden bronzes of the season sprinkled the landscape and engulfed my little pond with vivid reflections of the kaleidoscope’s canopy that hovered overhead. The surface of the water was a still, glass portrait only disturbed by a small red and white bobber and the rare disappearance of it when pulled under by a perch. It was so quiet and peaceful, a serene escape where thoughts could flow freely without challenge, correction, or judgement. This was a place you could feel God’s presence. 

When the fish weren’t biting, which was almost always, my boredom would lead me to throwing small rocks into the still pond which violently broke its surface tension. I would toss the stone 20 or 30 yards into the center of the pond and be fascinated by its crashing impact, then mesmerized by the formation of perfectly concentric circles that expanded across the entirety of the pond, reaching the surrounding shores simultaneously, and redirecting the colorful fallen leaves, once floating aimlessly. The fish below would scatter, the water bugs would jump, and small waves would rush against the banks making their dry edges moist with perspiration. The bigger the stone I threw, the more impact it had on that small pond and everything within its finite eco-system. 

This pond has been a childhood memory that has forever been etched into my mind and one that not only represents but brings me peace. I often replay its remembrance in my mind on sleepless nights when fear, anxiety, and doubts hijack my brain. I think of the stillness of that pond, its quietness, and its beauty. It is a scene that calms and quiets my sometimes not so beautiful thoughts. I can feel the cool air and a light breeze that whispers through my hair as I slowly drift back into sleep. Other times it becomes a reoccurring nightmare as the larger rocks I shouldn’t have thrown, violently disrupt, disturb, interrupt, and harmfully destroy the peaceful harmony of that perfect portrait, one that existed before I darkened its shores. This, of course, is a metaphor for the times in my life I’ve carelessly, selfishly, and ignorantly thrown stones that represented anger, dishonesty, irresponsibility, greed, pride, envy, frustration, and fear. Stones that have shattered, upset, negatively impacted, and hurt the people in my pond, and often others downstream of them. Memories like this have the persistence of resurfacing, vacillating between the conscious and unconscious, many times peacefully, warming, and comforting. Other times gnawing, haunting, sickening, and casting me into regret, remorse, and morbid reflection, but always reminding me there is a reason for their permanence. This idyllic episode and its inversely gloomy curse have become my muse, a lifelong source of inspiration, creativity, desire to amend a past and impact a future that has never left me. A metaphoric prophecy unexplored, fully interpreted, nor uncorked until now. It is the impetus and the spark for this book.

As I ponder the far-reaching impact of one small stone crashing into my father’s pond, I am struck by the great analogy it represents. If a simple stone and the small effort of a toss can change the entirety of a pond’s structure, then what human efforts could influence the complex structure of humanity, of family, of community, and of life itself? What constructive stones can we throw in this life that result in exponential change and ones that can create the same concentric ripple effects we see in my father’s pond? In “The Father’s Pond”. What positive miracles can we initiate if we are only willing to lose our fears, take risks, trust an unknown, and throw the stones of change?  Conversely, I am frightened and distraught by the inverse. What negative actions taken in life create waves of pain, sorrow, hurt, anger, resentment, regret, and sadness? These are stones we often throw, inconsiderate of their risks or consequences. Both sides of the equation must be considered. “The Seven Stones” everyone should throw, and the seven stones we should leave lying in the dirt become the message and personal journey of this narrative. The pond is life. The stones are every thought we think, every word we speak, every action we take, and every relationship we choose to be are a part of. The ripples from those stones are the legacies we leave behind. Some will be powerful grass root initiatives that evolve into life giving expansions of love, others will scorch the earth for generations to come.

Over the years, however, I have discovered something even more important. Initially, I believed this book would be about choosing and throwing the right stones. I no longer believe that is the real story that needs to be told. We all can control the size of the stone, the velocity of the launch, but never entirely the magnitude of its impact. The greatest question isn’t what stones we throw as I had originally contemplated; the greater question is what kind of person is holding those stones? Long before the ripples reach the shoreline, something has already determined the direction of the stone and power of its impact. Those somethings are our fears, our identities, our wounds, our faith, our purpose, and our character to name a few. The quality of the ripples we leave in this world are determined long before the stone ever leaves our hand.

 What kind of stones are you throwing today? What stones are you capable of throwing? What transformations must occur in the thrower before he or she possesses the stones of positive change? What amount of self-awareness, discipline, and wisdom must be achieved to prevent throwing stones of destruction? What stones do YOU hope to someday throw into the pond of life? The question isn’t which stones we throw, it’s who we become before we throw them.

At thirteen-years-old, throwing the stone, and being transfixed by the concentric ripples it created was some kind of mesmerizing miracle, a fascinating display of chaos theory to me. It was the creation of a transverse surface wave, propelled by kinetic energy that displaced water molecules and propagated all sorts of unforeseen downstream changes. It took me fifty years to realize it wasn’t the stone. It wasn't the ripples. It wasn’t even the pond. The miracle was the man standing beside me. Long before I learned how to throw a stone, or skip a rock, he taught me how to become the kind of man who throws stones that matter.

This is his story.

And it is yours too.