“HE TRIED TO GET CLOSE”

“Write about this.” “Put it in your blog!” I don’t think I have ever blogged something in response to a challenge to do so, but I am now. Here it is: I knew better. I hunted for over half my life. Also, from a child through young adulthood, I was an avid reader of Outdoor Life. You just don’t get close to a mother bear with young cubs. With my wife’s family on a recent vacation, we were staying in a condo about as far up into the Smokies above Gatlinburg as one can get. The road ended on top of the mountain not far from where we lodged. Despite quite a few visits through the years, I had never seen bears in the wild in the Smokey Mountains. That famine has ended. We saw bears constantly. Everywhere. Especially, around our condo and all through the resort of which it was a part. We even had one large bear hang out below our balcony. One day, as we were exiting the resort headed for town, someone spotted twin cubs over on the edge of the parking lot. And their mother. My brother-law who was driving stopped. Windows were rolled down, and we were all pointing or trying to get a photo. But the bears were far enough away that no one was able to get a very good one. I don’t know who, but someone temptingly said to me—because I was sitting shot-gun and could most easily do so—“Why don’t you try to get closer and get a good picture?” Bright idea. I knew better. Getting out of the car, I started walking tentatively and slowly towards the cubs. I sensed a brother-in-law had joined me a few steps behind. As I said, I knew the thing and the metaphor about the protective rage of a mother bear. But I figured, “The cubs are far enough from the her, that I can keep that pickup truck on the edge of the parking lot between me and the mother so she won’t see me.” She didn’t see me. She smelt and/or heard me. I had walked within just a few yards of the cubs and was snapping photos rapidly when I saw her coming about the same time my brother-in-law squealed a warning in so high an octave that it was almost unintelligible “She’s coming!” He broke Olympic records in his dash to the car. Later, he confessed to thinking he needed only to outrun me to the car to be safe. When he yelled, the mother came around the truck’s bumper. Her ears were flattened against her lowered head, as bears do when they charge. Growling she rushed at me with pouncing leaps. I could hear the clatter of her claws on the asphalt. I took a step backward with an involuntary “Ohhhhh.” It sounded like someone else made the sound, someone just gut-punched. Thankfully, mamma bear abruptly stopped just a mere few feet from me. The cubs had not seen us but had been trained to scurry up trees when their mother growled a warning. They were ten feet up the tree before the mother got to me. Sensing her cubs were safe, the mother turned back to them. Relieved but feeling foolish, I returned to the vehicle. Back in the SUV, we all were chattering excitedly about the experience as we wound our way down the mountain. We passed a cemetery. I think it was in response to seeing it that someone remarked, “We could be having your funeral real soon and putting you in the graveyard.” Seeing the tombstones, in a split moment of thought, I envisioned what my tombstone would look like. I saw one that looked like one of those centuries-old stones covered with moss with the epitaph in large letters with quote marks bracketing it. “Yeah,” I responded, “And on it, you could put, ‘He tried to get close.’ That would say it all.” The “He tried to get close,” would capture the stupidity of my being mauled and even losing my life simply to get a good photo of cute bear cubs. There was a courtesy laugh, but after it died away, I kept seeing the tombstone with my name and “He tried to get close” in my mind’s eye. It suddenly struck me. That might not be the worse of epitaphs. It could be a great epitaph to summarize one’s life. Not “close” to a mother bear, but to God. If we think of walking with God, serving Jesus, and worshiping the King, if we think of one devoted throughout his life to pursuing God and the things of God, “He tried to get close,” need not be a condemnatory epithet but a commendatory epitaph. If only, “He tried to get close,” could be the accurate and fitting inscription below my name on my tombstone. (To my wife and children: “If you read this, I’m not hinting.”) Could it be put on your tombstone? Could it be said of your life? “She tried to get close.” “He tried to get close.” That would say it all. --Pastor Clifford Hurst