by Ronnie Reese

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: August 07, 2009

BLANKS

Recently, I spoke to a friend of mine about her grandchildren. She was quite stymied that they knew very little about God.

I could relate to what she had said. For many years I had taught children in church. One of the most alarming things to me was that there are more and more youngsters who come to visit church and know extremely little about God. I am utterly amazed when I meet children who have never heard the stories of 'David and Goliath', or 'Daniel in the Lion's Den'.

As I left this dear lady I considered the Godless society we seem to be a part of these days. Our politically correct philosophy has now entered the spiritual sphere and rather than say something to offend others, we as a society have come to the point where we say nothing at all to the youth of today.

All too often, they remind me more and more of a rock I used to find when I hunted for arrowheads. We called it a blank.

A 'blank' is a chunk of rock made of the same flint-like material as arrowheads and spearheads are made out of. The ones I've found usually ranged from about fist size to being as big as a bowling ball.

Years ago as our Native Americans found large boulders of churt, (American flint). The boulders were too large to take with them so they would chink off large chunks with their stone hammers and carry them off with them, until they had a chance to turn them into something useful. These chunks of rock are known as 'blanks'.

Many times the older hunter/warriors, or those too old and frail to hunt anymore did the spearhead and arrowhead making for the tribe. These experienced men could just look at a blank and visualize what they could make out of it. They of course started by making tomahawk heads and the larger spear points and eventually used the smaller fragments of churt to fashion arrowheads.

Occasionally they would run into a vein of some inferior substance passing through the rock. This crack caused them to have to change their original plans, but nevertheless, they just kept knapping (chipping) away at the blank, fashioning it into something useful.

As I look at one of the few blanks I've kept during my search for Native American artifacts, I am truly reminded of our children and our youth of today. Like the craftsman of yesteryear, we need to look deeper than what's on the surface. We need to see beneath the rough edges of the blank and visualize all the tools hiding deep beneath the surface.

We, the children's parents, grandparents, friends, relatives,

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