Moving Rocks

My parents wanted to put some loose rock down on the side of their house this spring. There’s a patch there where the grass doesn’t grow well between the house and their neighbor’s wooden fence.

So they went out to a store and bought eighteen 50-pound bags of rock. I said, “That’s a lot of rock! How are you going to get it to your house?” They thought they might be able to put it in their car and just take several trips.

I was very concerned for them. I don’t live in the same city and couldn’t just run over to help them. They’re both in their mid-seventies and they’ve both had some health issues. I told them I didn’t think that was a good idea. After all, I said, that’s 900 pounds of rock! I didn’t think they had any business, physically, trying to move 900 pounds of rock. 

My mom replied, “That isn’t 900 pounds of rock. Let’s see, it’s 18 bags, each bag is 50 pounds…well, when did you get so good at math, Mr. Smartypants?!”

I thought they should buy the rock in bulk and have it dumped right where they needed it. No, they got a good deal on the rock, but it was in individual bags that weighed 50 pounds each!

It was going to cost more to have the store deliver the bags of rock to them than what they paid for the rock in the first place. They didn’t like that idea. 

I was concerned about how the rock would get moved into the right location after it arrived at their house. But I was even more concerned about how the rock was even going to get there.

Again, they thought they could just take several trips and get a few bags at a time. I was worried about them lifting these bags of rock anyway, but I was also uneasy about them trying to put 900 pounds of rock in their car, even if it was just a few bags at a time.

I said, “That’s too much weight.”

My mom exclaimed, “Well, we can certainly put 150 pounds in our trunk at one time. People put bodies in there!”

Wait, what? People put bodies in their trunks? Your trunk can handle 150 pounds of rock because people put bodies in there?!

Now I was concerned about what my parents had been doing besides this little rock project.

I want to honor my parents. I’ve asked my brothers to honor our parents. My wife, Joy, and I have taught our children what it means to honor our parents and other elders. We want to respect our parents, listen to them, help them, contact them regularly and share life with them, express our gratitude, and ultimately help care for them.

This is, of course, a biblical notion, one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus lifts it up in the gospels. Paul tells the church at Ephesus, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’—this is the first commandment with a promise: ‘so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.’” (Ephesians 6:1-3)

Sirach, a book included in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Old Testament collections, says, “Those who honor their father [and mother] will have joy in their own children, and when they pray they will be heard” (3:5). 

I honor my parents. I prayed that God would help them, and that prayer was heard. I had great joy in my children when my oldest daughter and her boyfriend borrowed a pickup truck and helped my parents move the rock!