The Ladder to Nowhere

The Ladder to Nowhere


Well, here goes ... hope this email reaches you since Lynn is off doing God's work in Godless Russia. I've been left with 3 pages of instructions, so maybe we'll get lucky ... or you will get lucky if it doesn't make it.

In the middle of the grass in my back yard stands a shiny aluminum14 foot ladder. I have no clue why it is there, and it certainly looks out of context to say the least. Every morning I camp out on the back porch and do my reading and meditation ... sometimes I even pray for some of the more twisted souls in our Friday Forum group, although some of you may be beyond help. I can't get away from staring at that ladder. Why is it there? What could it mean?

I finally ask my daughter, "What's with the ladder in the back yard?" Her only reply is, "One day, Pop, you'll understand … . just meditate on it for a bit longer." I hate answers like that, don't you? Yesterday, curious beyond the capacity to contain it, I go out there and climb up on it to see if that might offer some clue to the dilemma. It got pretty wobbly as I got to the top, and it felt unnatural to say the least. Yet I remained up at the top long enough to look around for some clues. I found none. I came back down to earth.

I called my daughter over and asked, "Look, I've stared at that ladder for a week now, even climbed it this morning, and I'm no closer in discovering its significance than at first." She just laughed and left. Then I got to thinking about the ladder, remembering in years past how I couldn't wait to climb ladders, the higher the better ... hell be damned ... youth is always looking to get into the stratosphere, and the ladder is one way. And I also remembered that many of the business ladders, although fun to climb to these heights, led to nowhere ... the joy was in the climbing, not in the peak achievement. I remained at the top of these ladders for only a short time, and even while there life was pretty precarious at that altitude.

I once owned a number of trailer parks. I had a fellow named Steve who was a pretty good maintenance man, and he had no fear of ladders. One day he had a 40 footer propped up against a trailer and was at the top. "Hey Steve, if you keep up that work ethic you'll keep climbing that corporate ladder with me.” He wasn't impressed with this cheap accolade, and replied, "Well, Bud, I always want to know what my ladder is leaning on.” And in this case, as I later learned, trailer parks are bad investments and are a weak reed for leaning purposes. While Steve was a good maintenance man, he had a nasty habit of wife-beating, and it just didn't set well with me to see her all beat up and roaming around the park collecting rent. It seemed against nature, so he had to leave.

Now, I don't know if that tall ladder accounted for Steve's proclivity, but it might have. But there is a parallel in that story, if you can get it: Excessive heights produce excessive egos, or something like that ... maybe that's what my daughter was trying to say to me. And I'll repeat it to you ... he who hath ears, let him hear!


Bud
October 4, 2007