The Truth - Paul Harvey's Take

Paul Harvey Aurandt , better known as Paul Harvey, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1918. He died last February at the age of 90. Paul Harvey News was described as the "largest one-man network in the world" as he was broadcast on 1600 radio stations and his columns printed in 300 newspapers. His listening weekly audience was estimated, at its peak, at 24 million.

The best known of his work was his The Rest of the Story segments alongside of which he touted his enthusiastic support of his sponsors: "I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where my mouth is."
 
Harvey was known for catch phrases he used in his programs, such as "Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey. You know what the news is, in a minute, you're going to hear ... the rest of the story."  He always ended, "…Paul Harvey... G'd day."  At the end of a report about someone who had done something ridiculous or offensive, Harvey would say, "He would want us to mention his name," followed by silence, then would start the next item.  The last item of a broadcast, which was often a funny story, would usually be preceded by "For what it's worth."  And yet, there was no shortage of people who raising the question of THE truth of his stories.  However, there was always A truth in them.  Here is one such story:

"And now, the man I speak of was not a scrooge.  He was a kind, decent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others.  But he just didn't believe the incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas.  It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend.  He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite.  That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them.  And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.  Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall.  He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper.  Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound...then another, and another.  At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window.

But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow.  They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large picture window.  Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony.  That would provide shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn.  He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in.  He figured food would entice them.  So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable.  But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow.
 
He tried catching them...he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms.  Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.  And then, he realized that they were afraid of him.  To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature.  If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me...that I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them.  But how?   Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them.  They just would not follow.  They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language.  Then I could tell them not to be afraid.  Then I could show them the way to safe, warm barn.  But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand."  At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells --Adeste Fidelis (O Come, All Ye Faithful)-- listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.  And he sank to his knees in the snow."

That was Paul Harvey's take.  I am certain that, in that story, there is not only A truth -- therein lies THE Truth.

E. Taveirne