In 1988, author Robert Fulghum had a book published entitled, “All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten”. The idea behind the little book was that since the basics of human social behavior are taught us as young children, such as kindness, fairness, cleaning up after yourself, sharing and so on, they are principles that should be obvious to us and remain with us the rest of our lives.
Less than 10 years after the emergence of this book my wife and children and I moved to Del Norte, Colorado. The church we began to attend there was pastored by a man who had just been discharged from the Marines and was now working as a farrier, which is someone who shoes horses. The residual influence of the military, which was his recent experience, and his desire to resonate well with the local ranchers, as a shoer of horses, gave him a proclivity for centering most of his sermon illustrations in military things, or ranching and farming.
Now I have absolutely the greatest respect for the farmer and the need for farmers and the blessing they are to all of us. But there were many of us in that congregation who were becoming increasingly burdened by frequent references to the United States Marines, and the nature of farming.
One Sunday morning as this man presented his quickly composed message, he said, “Now, we’re all farmers here, and we understand…” But the fact was, we were not all farmers there, and this well-known fact drew my attention away from the point he was driving at to consider how many in his congregation he had just lost.
As I began to contemplate this, my wife leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Everything I really need to know about farming, I learned in Kindergarten; ‘E-I, E-I, O’.”
I don’t know what that has to do with anything; I just wanted to tell it to you.
From Clark Tanner’s Sermon: “God Calls to Account”