She took my glasses.  “It’s going to be about forty-five minutes, Mr. Phillips,” came the warning.  I was prepared for a delay, so I took my seat in the waiting room.  I used to spend this time reading the already-worn magazines which are always hanging around reception areas, but today as I bided my time, I pulled out my Swiss-Army phone to check my email and the auction I was running on Ebay.    That didn’t take long (slow day for both emails and the auction), so the Solitaire game, always a welcome time-waster when no other alternatives are available, popped up on the screen. 

I was in the optometrist’s office to pick up my new lenses, probably long past due, given the changes in my eyesight over the last couple of years.  Since I’m too cheap to buy new frames if there is any wear left in the current pair, they were cutting the new lenses to fit the old ones.  I could hear the machine back there, grinding or cutting something.  After awhile, the optometrist, an old acquaintance of mine, came out and sat in the chair next to me just to talk.  We gabbed about children, and old times.  Doc was an umpire years ago when my son played Little League, giving opportunity to all kinds of jokes about glasses and bad calls in the ball games.  We just sat and remembered “way back when” and then he was gone again to check on the progress.

“Come on back, Paul,” he called out, directing me to a seat in the fitting room.  “She’s just going to get them cleaned and then we’ll make sure they’re okay.”  I sat where I was directed (again) and waited…and waited…and waited.  Finally, he walked into the room and told me what the delay was about this time.  It seems that when the lab makes the type of bifocals I wear, they have to mark them to make sure the optometrist aligns them correctly when cutting them to fit the frames.  Otherwise, I might be looking cross-eyed to use the stronger magnification needed to read these days, instead of looking out the bottom of the glasses.  This time, they had marked the lenses with a marker which wouldn’t wash off.  Try as they might, two dots remained on each lens.  They cleaned them with normal glass cleaner, and then still stronger liquids; finally placing them in an autoclave to see if the steam would remove the marks.  It didn’t.

The young lady came out with the glasses in hand to show me the marks, asking half-jokingly if I wanted to just go ahead and take them as they were.  We talked a few moments about how the eyes would adjust to the marks and after awhile, would not even recognize that they were there.  I declined, at which time she replaced my old lenses in the frames and handed them back to me.  “We’ll send them back and make them right this time,” the girl at the desk told me as I left.  I assume that I’ll wait another forty-five minutes the next time they call me back.  But hey, at my age, I’ll take all the breaks I can get.

The lady’s comments got me thinking, though.  I remember that my mom used to look at me as I came home from school and ask, “How can you see through those things?  They’re filthy!”  I would remove the glasses and look at them from a distance; acknowledging that they were indeed, filthy.  The odd thing is that I never noticed the filth.  I would start out the day with clean lenses, accumulating dust and grease gradually as the day progressed.  Little by little, my vision was obscured, never being noticed at all.  But, when I cleaned them!  Wow!  The world became clearer and so much more well defined.  Obviously, the world hadn’t changed, so it could only be that I was just looking at it differently.

How’s your vision?  Have you purposely bought a distorted picture of reality?  Or maybe you’ve just got a build-up of filth from years of being out in the elements.  Either way, you’ll be amazed at how very different the view really can be.  Sometimes blindness needs a miracle touch to give sight.  Other times, we just need to employ the tools we’ve been given and clean the lens.  Either way, it’s a great perspective when unobscured by the grit and grime of doubt and cynicism which are thrown into our faces daily.

I won’t be buying the defective lenses this time.  You might remind me to clean the new ones once in awhile, though.  Fuzzy is okay for teddy bears, but not when I’m looking at your smiling face!

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
Gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.”
(Johnny Nash)

“They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”
(Matthew 15:14)

I’m a “looky loo”.  I’ve actually spent most of my life saying that I am a “people watcher”, but the latter is just a more polite phrase for the former.  I openly admit this as one of my shortcomings.  If something is going on nearby, regardless of my stake in the event, I want to get a look at it.  Sometimes, even after I’ve seen what’s happening and have gone home, I have to return to the scene, to be sure that there hasn’t been another development adding to the interest.  I have nothing to contribute to the situation, no help to offer, but I don’t want to be the one guy in the world who didn’t witness what occurred.

It happened the other night.  I was working in the music store with the Lovely Lady and our watch-mutt in the backyard started barking.  This is not unusual, but under normal circumstances, he’ll stop pretty quickly as the neighbor dog being walked goes around the next corner, or the two middle-aged speed-walking fitness nuts zip past, never missing a beat in their conversation (how do they do that?).  This night, the barking kept up and actually increased in volume, so I stepped out the back door of the business to investigate.  Up the street a hundred feet or less, a police cruiser was stopped next to the sidewalk and three men were standing nearby, one of them in conversation with the officer in the vehicle.  As I watched, the two not talking with the officer walked away in opposite directions.  A moment later, the officer switched on the lights on top of the car and got out, moving around to stand next to the remaining man.  They continued speaking for a few moments, so I decided that there was nothing more to be seen and went back in to work.  This was a rookie mistake on my part.  No veteran “looky loo” would have left so quickly.  In just moments, the volume of the mutt’s yelping increased nearly to the frantic stage, so I exited the store once more.

“Let me see your hands!” was the shout that I heard as I opened the door.  Yep, they really said it.  I thought that was just in the movies, but the officer had his pistol drawn and aimed at someone behind the car wash next door to me, repeating the command several times more before the man evidently complied.  What had started as a single officer in conversation with the man quickly became pandemonium, with no less than 7 cruisers arriving in just seconds.  I saw two officers with drawn weapons, and a third came up from the side of the building I was on with his hand resting on his still-holstered pistol, ready to draw it at a second’s notice.  They rapidly got the man in cuffs and half-carried, half-led him toward the waiting car.  Moment’s later, an ambulance arrived with its siren screaming, to the dismay of the mutt, who went into a full-throated howl at the sound.  From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what the injury was, but stayed where I was for a few moments as the officers wandered through the neighborhood with their flashlights, checking for any of the other individuals who had wandered away just moments before the altercation with their comrade.  When I was sure I wasn’t going to miss any other momentous events, I returned to my work. 

The whole time this went on, the Lovely Lady stayed at her desk, accomplishing exactly what she came to work for, working steadily toward her goal.  She is not a “looky loo”.  What is it about our personalities that makes some of us intensely interested in the goings on in the world, while others are only concerned when the event directly affects them or someone they are connected with?   I don’t ask the question to indicate that either choice is better or worse, simply to call attention to the difference.  There is no arguing that she accomplishes more work, even as events are transpiring, while I spend most of my time playing catch-up because of my lack of focus.

Chances are good, if you’re a casual reader of this blog, you may also be a “looky loo”.  I’ve observed before that the media (especially the so-called “social media”) we have at our disposal brings out the voyeur in us, allowing us to follow many individuals’ activities without the bother of interacting with them.  We can view photos and videos, follow the progress of a “friend” recovering from an illness or injury, and even observe their special days (birthdays and anniversaries) without them ever knowing that we have any interest whatsoever.  The other new label for this activity is “lurking”, and countless numbers of us participate in this.  I will say that I have made a conscious effort to comment on such items of interest, simply because I know myself and how easy it would be to simply watch from the shadows of the Internet.

I have a two-fold purpose in writing today’s post; the first being to remind all of us, myself especially, that it’s not healthy to simply watch events unfold from the sidelines.  I’m certainly not suggesting that we walk into the middle of the arrest scene I described above, but I am suggesting that when we have the opportunity to be involved in our friend’s and neighbor’s lives, we do so actively.  The changing definition of friendship is more than a little disturbing to me and I believe that the further we go into isolation, the more impoverished and consequently, unbalanced as a society we will be. 

My second reason for mentioning the issue of “looky loos” is to encourage the readers of this blog to interact with me and the other readers.  I know that many of you are not comfortable with making public comments, but rest assured; there are ways you can do so anonymously.  Sometimes, I find myself getting discouraged in writing because several posts go by without feedback, but I know you’re out there (the stats don’t lie!).  If you don’t want to actually write a comment, you may opt to click the one-word comments at the bottom of this post.  I’m not looking for pats on the back, but simply your honest input.  You may disagree with something I’ve said in a blog and I’d love to hear your take on what I have written.  If mine is the only voice I hear, you’ll keep getting the same old stuff over and over again.  I’m pretty sure that will get fairly monotonous, if it hasn’t already done so.

Okay!  Enough of the boring stuff!  It seems like exciting things keep happening around me.  I’ll let you know when my next interaction with the men in blue happens.  Come to think of it; I’d rather not.  Maybe we could keep it a little lower key for awhile.  My heart needs time to recuperate from the last one…

“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.”
(Jane Austen~English novelist~1775-1817)

“A friend is very different than an acquaintance.  The former is tried and true; the latter only a casual shadow in one’s life.”
(Anonymous)

“Play me something on this guitar, Paul.  I want to listen to the sound.”  Kurt held out the old classical guitar expectantly.  As I reluctantly took the guitar from his hand, he stepped a few feet away, waiting for me to strum a few chords on the nylon strings.  I thought for a second and then began a classical piece, the name long lost to my memory, which I had learned close to thirty years ago.  It was a pretty basic student piece, with a repetitious high E, plucked in an alternating eighth note pattern throughout the first half of the piece, progressing to a triplet feel toward the end.  For some reason, the song is impressive to listen to, but not so difficult to play.  My rudimentary skills are well suited for this piece, so it’s what I usually play when someone insists that I demonstrate a guitar for them.

Kurt has been around our little town for a few years now, a transplant from New Orleans, uprooted by hurricane Katrina.  He came for the shelter offered in the camp south of town and decided to stay and work for awhile.  I first met him, along with another displaced fellow, who came in to my store from the camp to find a guitar.  They had both been professional musicians in the city and lost everything they had when disaster struck.  The other older gentleman headed back for more familiar territory as soon as he could, but Kurt has carved out a niche for himself here.  He is a seasoned jazz guitar player, so it was gratifying to watch him as I played the little ditty on that old guitar.  The look of surprise and enjoyment on his face was unexpected, but welcome to me as I struggled to manipulate the strings on the frets with my inept left hand and, at the same time, to work out the plucking pattern with the tentative digits of my right hand. 

When I finished the piece, we talked for a few moments about the guitar and took care of our business.  As he exited, he tossed  a comment over his shoulders.  “I never knew you had that in you, Paul.  You really can play the guitar, can’t you?”  I didn’t have the chance to disabuse him of the notion, but I wish it were true.  Years ago, I aspired to learn the guitar, spending a number of late evenings practicing and stumbling through exercises and scales, learning the notation for this frustrating instrument with its odd intervals and difficult chord patterns.  In the battle of man against guitar, the guitar won.  Thirty years later, I still cannot claim anything but the most basic mastery, nor do I anticipate that this will change in the next thirty years.

As usual, my focus is not really on the actual event I describe, but on the illuminating concept that emerges as I consider the implication of Kurt’s words.  I’m wondering if this is not actually a fairly common condition, this hidden talent awaiting an opportunity to surprise others who think they know us.  The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that most of us have gifts, talents if you will, that have lain dormant within us, simply awaiting the time when we realize that it’s now or never.  We succumb to that urge to paint, or write, or play the guitar; whatever it is that has been our secret talent.

Many late bloomers determine to make the most of their dream and seek instructors to help perfect their craft.  Others simply begin to do that which they have put off until it can be put off no longer.   For some, the dormancy was never their plan, but simply a casualty of the necessities of life.  Marriage, family, work – all of these combine to crush our intentions to use the skills we have.  Now at last, those responsibilities have progressed to a point where they demand less of our attention and we remember what it was we once wanted to achieve. 

Are you a late bloomer?  It’s time to get busy!  Start using that secret skill; practicing that talent.  You owe it to yourself to explore the potential.  I’m not saying that everyone around will enjoy it, but give it a shot anyway.  I’m tormenting you with my blooming dream right now.  Writing these posts has been the most fun I’ve had in many years.  I realize that from the other side, it may not be so pleasurable.  Thanks for putting up with me anyway.  I may get better at it as time progresses (or not).  Maybe it’s time you give it a try yourself.  (I don’t mean the writing, unless of course, that’s your passion.) 

If you’re going to run marathons, start training.  Sharpen up the knives if you’re going to try woodcarving.  Somewhere out there is someone who will look at you in surprise and say, “I didn’t know you had that in you!”

It’s time you let the rest of the world in on the secret.

“Hide not your talents.  They, for use were made.  What’s a sundial in the shade?”
(Benjamin Franklin~American statesman, writer, and inventor~1706-1790)

“Hide it under a bushel? No!
I’m going to let it shine!”
(from the children’s song “This Little Light Of Mine” by Harry Dixon Loes~1895-1965)

A man died yesterday as his body was torn by bullets.  Quite likely, he died with a curse on his lips, as he attempted to do what he had done for all of his life; send more of his enemies to their graves in the name of his false god.  One man died.  And, a whole nation rejoiced.

A sinner went to his grave, never to repent, never to know the grace of a loving God.  And, it seems to me that as he entered the gates of Hell, going to eternal torment, many of the very people who should have been saddened at the state in which he died, exulted in his annihilation.

As I sat down to write last night, I struggled with my feelings, believing that I could keep quiet about this and it would pass.  I have spent the day listening to and reading comments from family and friends, only to come to the conclusion that my heart knew the truth, but I was unwilling to expose it to you, unsure of how many of you would react if I made anything approaching a “political” statement.  This is anything but political.  It is the very core of who I am, what my faith has made me.  Tomorrow perhaps, I’ll write a light, funny essay.  Not tonight.

For tonight, I’ll try to keep it short, but I want to say this as clearly as I know how.  I am convinced that Osama Bin Laden had to die.  There was no alternative.  His reign of terror has turned the world upside down.  The repercussions will be felt for generations, perhaps centuries (if we’re still here) to come.  A capture and public trial could only serve to further inflame the hatred and increase the atrocities which have been committed at his behest and in his name.  My head knows this and is content that his death was inevitable.  Our God assures us that evildoers will die.

That said, my heart tells me that we have lost a huge part of ourselves yesterday and today.  My first thought, as I watched the crowds dancing in the street last night, both at the White House and at Ground Zero in NYC, was of the thousands who danced with delight in the streets of many Middle Eastern cities on September 11, 2001.  We also danced, not because justice had been done, but because the vengeance in our hearts was satisfied.  You don’t believe it?  Go back and listen to the sound track of the video.  “Na na na-na, Na na na-na, Hey hey, Goodbye!”  Is that the sound of justice?  Read the posts in the social media today.  Were they of justice and the sigh of relief at the knowledge that a murderer was no longer free to wreak his havoc?  Or, were they of unbridled pleasure that a man was dead?  Really most sincerely dead?  Just like the Wicked Witch, bereft of humanity, of a soul.  “Ding dong, the witch is dead…”

Do I offend?  I don’t mean to.  I am pointing the finger at myself, knowing who I am; knowing my reaction at the news last night.  I am aware of my joy, my elation as I heard the story unfold.  I am as much a part of those mobs as if I was there, singing and rejoicing at a sinner’s entrance into Hell.  The evil man got what was coming to him!  Those were just as much my thoughts and feelings as anyone else in the world.

But, I am convinced that our God (the same One who declares that the evildoer must die), takes no joy in any sinner’s entrance into Hell.  His love speaks against my hatred, my vengeful spirit.  “While we (all of us) were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  We have all been His enemies.  Every one of us deserved annihilation, but instead were offered life. 

I pray that we will recover.  I pray that we will learn.  I pray that we will love our enemies with His unrelenting love.  If we fail, we lose.

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”
“For I do not take pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
(Ezekiel 18:23, 32)