A Boy’s Image of God
Blog / Produced by The High Calling
At first, I couldn’t understand the loss I felt when I heard Fred Schweg had died.
Fred was a carpenter in the small Canadian town that my family and I had visited every summer for the past 50 years. When we were children, our first destination in town was Mr. Schweg’s house for the key to our cabin. He’d lean into the car, wave to my brothers and sisters and me, then speak with my parents about the rough winter or about the moose he saw or about the good fishing that spring. Then he would hand my mother the key.
Fred dismantled an original log cabin and rebuilt it alongside the river where we spent our yearly vacation. It was Fred who announced that bears were on our property and suggested we be cautious about picking raspberries alone.
Fred wasn’t tall. He wore various hats each summer: baseball caps, straw hats, formal fedoras. A cigarette always dangled from his lips. He told stories about bear hunting and horseback riding. He revealed where to find great quartz crystals. And he pointed to a mountainside with pride, saying, “I own that.”
As a boy, I always believed Fred Schweg was like Daniel Boone—a smart, colorful figure able to survive in the middle of a forest with only a knife and his wits. I still hear his laughter, still smell the aroma of his cigarettes and the smoke from his wood burning stove. Fred cut hay with a scythe, drove a team of horses to plow the land, and liked the taste of crabapples and fresh wild strawberries.
Something accessible and wise and frightening and good lived in Fred Schweg. When I heard that he died, a part of the boy inside me died, because Fred was an ambassador from the adult world—and from a world now fading: the country man, the man of the earth, the man who knew the names of the stars and could build a house with his bare hands.
Throughout our lives, we meet people who remind us that we are all members of the same family.
Fred Schweg was a father figure to me, someone who could have been created in the image of God. We hear that we are all created in God’s image. I hope God is happy to see me someday. I hope He tells me stories about bears and shooting stars. I hope He makes me feel the way Fred Schweg made me feel: blessed and good.
Fred was a carpenter in the small Canadian town that my family and I had visited every summer for the past 50 years. When we were children, our first destination in town was Mr. Schweg’s house for the key to our cabin. He’d lean into the car, wave to my brothers and sisters and me, then speak with my parents about the rough winter or about the moose he saw or about the good fishing that spring. Then he would hand my mother the key.
Fred dismantled an original log cabin and rebuilt it alongside the river where we spent our yearly vacation. It was Fred who announced that bears were on our property and suggested we be cautious about picking raspberries alone.
Fred wasn’t tall. He wore various hats each summer: baseball caps, straw hats, formal fedoras. A cigarette always dangled from his lips. He told stories about bear hunting and horseback riding. He revealed where to find great quartz crystals. And he pointed to a mountainside with pride, saying, “I own that.”
As a boy, I always believed Fred Schweg was like Daniel Boone—a smart, colorful figure able to survive in the middle of a forest with only a knife and his wits. I still hear his laughter, still smell the aroma of his cigarettes and the smoke from his wood burning stove. Fred cut hay with a scythe, drove a team of horses to plow the land, and liked the taste of crabapples and fresh wild strawberries.
Something accessible and wise and frightening and good lived in Fred Schweg. When I heard that he died, a part of the boy inside me died, because Fred was an ambassador from the adult world—and from a world now fading: the country man, the man of the earth, the man who knew the names of the stars and could build a house with his bare hands.
Throughout our lives, we meet people who remind us that we are all members of the same family.
Fred Schweg was a father figure to me, someone who could have been created in the image of God. We hear that we are all created in God’s image. I hope God is happy to see me someday. I hope He tells me stories about bears and shooting stars. I hope He makes me feel the way Fred Schweg made me feel: blessed and good.
Ethics is about knowing and doing what is good or right, and workplace ethics is about knowing and doing what is good or right at work. For the Christian, this means applying the Bible and other resources of the Christian faith to help decide and do what is ethical or moral at work.