The night is cold and windy, but the two black dogs lie out in the yard on a dirty blanket.  They have a house.  It is warm and dry in their house.  The owner of these canines is such a soft-hearted pushover that he even installed a heated pad in the floor of the little structure.  But their blanket is out in the yard on the cold, damp dirt.  And, since they don’t want to lie on that hard heating pad on the hard floor of the house, they lie on the filthy soft blanket in the yard and they shiver.

You would expect that the dog’s owner would be intelligent enough to place the blanket in the house.  Over the heating pad.  You would even expect that it could be a clean blanket.  What dog lover wouldn’t want to do that for his furry friends?

Can I set your mind at rest?  The owner of these particular pooches has done just that.  Again and again.  Multiple times, every day, the blanket is shaken free of debris and refolded.  The owner leans down and tosses the soft cloth over the floor of the house, provided an inviting and warm bed for the dogs.  Attempts to secure the blanket have been made, but have failed, with the stubborn puppies pulling it outside nearly as quickly as it can be reinstalled in its proper place.  The owner’s Lovely Lady has laundered the blanket on frequent occasions, but a blanket dragged over dirt several times a day is never clean for more than a few moments.  So, the dogs shiver in the cold and damp on a filthy blanket when they have a great place to be warm and dry and the opportunity to lie on a clean bed.

They drag the blanket out of the place it should be!  Around the yard it trails after them as they fight over it, tearing holes in the material and soiling it.  Not happy with leaving it where it belongs, again and again, they move it where they think they want it.  Dumb animals!  That’s what we would call them.  It’s what I mutter under my breath several times a day.  Turns out, they’re not so much unlike their humans.

The young man stood in front of me at the music store the other day with a pained look on his face.  “I can’t believe that there are no jobs around here!”  came the exasperated outburst.  “I’ve looked and looked and can’t find a job I want.”  I thought about the last couple of words of his statement for a few seconds.  Then I asked him what he meant.  Did “can’t find a job I want” mean that there really were jobs available?  Little by little, and quite reluctantly, he told me what he meant.  It seems that there really were jobs, but they were either in food service or the poultry industry, and he wasn’t about to hustle pizza or shuttle dead chickens to the freezer.  I was tempted to laugh at him, but then I thought that maybe I could actually help a little.  “If those jobs aren’t good enough for you, what are your qualifications for other work?”  I anticipated that the young man might have other experience or at least some training for other work, but I was to be disappointed.  He had a GED and had never done anything else besides some part-time construction work.   But…he had a “go-getter attitude” and “a lot of self-confidence.”  His words, not mine.  I gently suggested that perhaps the pizza job might be a good place to start, while he is working at bettering his skill-set, knowing that the words would probably fall on deaf ears.  They did.

Mr. Aesop would remind us that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, but it seems that we have to learn that for ourselves.  Never satisfied with the bounty we know, we seek for happiness in our own way, frequently becoming sadder but wiser.  I’m not advocating the absence of a dream; not even suggesting that we shouldn’t reach further.  You know by now that I believe that we need to always be striving to do better and aiming for goals in the distance.  What I am describing is the foolish rejection of provision which is ours for the taking, the gifts of a beneficent Creator, given to sustain us as we grow and mature (and reach).  But, like the dogs, or even like my young friend, we somehow think our wisdom exceeds His and we move our blanket into the cold, or reject the necessities in front of us, because that just doesn’t fit our notion of the proper order of things.  It’s a lesson I’m continuing to learn, well into my middle age.  I definitely feel sadder more often than wiser.

I’m going to head for home in a few moments.  I’ll stop by and return the blanket to the dog’s house.  They may be cold enough by now to leave it in there for the rest of the night.  I hope I can learn a lesson from the simpleminded little creatures.

It could happen…

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.  Remember that what you now have was once among the things that you only hoped for.”
(Epicurus~Greek philosopher~341-270 BC)

“Godliness with contentment brings a great profit.”
(I Timothy 6:6)

I find myself without many words tonight.  Exhausted and even a little overwhelmed, I feel the need for reassurance.  It seems that I spent my day reassuring.  “Sure, it can be repaired.  Don’t worry; it won’t be expensive.”  And later, “You need it tomorrow?  No problem.  It will be there!”  Again, and again, people needed to know that everything will be all right.  Gadgets they purchased weren’t as easy to use as they anticipated; strings were broken while they tuned the violin; their child no longer wishes to be in band and they have no use for the instrument we sold to them.  Each one is dealt with as patiently and as equitably as I have the ability to respond.  And, each reassurance from my lips, no matter how glibly or lightly the words roll out, costs me something in return.  Repairs take time and cause stress.  Rush orders push other, equally important tasks to the side, with the nagging realization that they will have to be finished also before my workday is done.  Instruction takes its toll as the effort to keep up saps my spirit.

I’m not complaining.  It’s just that I need someone to tell me, “Don’t worry, it will be all right,” myself.  I need to be reminded that it’s somehow worthwhile; that there is a payoff.  I’m not talking about financial profit, either.  Money doesn’t feed the spirit, nor does it fend off exhaustion.  I need to know that I’m hitting close to the bullseye of the target, that there is a reward for the labor.  Am I doing any good here at all?

There was one instance, a few years ago, when the reassurance came.  I wrote about it some time back.  A few of you have read the narrative below months ago, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I repeat it today, just to remind myself again…

Delivery to a Chicken House

“We’ll take the piano.  You’ll deliver it, won’t you?”  The heavy-set, unkempt man in front of me is not cut from the same cloth as most of my piano customers.  He’s what we would call “local color”, wearing his dirty overalls, one strap unhooked and hanging behind him.  The long, bushy beard looks wild and the dirty matted hair, even wilder.  Nevertheless, he reaches into his pocket to bring out a handful of cash and pays the price for the old upright piano.  It’s a good piano, but shows clear evidence of its seventy years of use.  We’ve done everything we can to make it function properly, but the darkened, almost black finish will never polish up.  His wife and daughter hang back nearby, and it’s clear from her demeanor that the girl is to be the principal beneficiary of the purchase.

The teenage girl is, like her father, carrying more weight than is normal for her height.  She’s also a bit self-conscious.  Her social skills are minimal and she looks to her father to answer every statement or question which I direct to her.  After a few unsuccessful attempts at conversation with her, I realize that I’m making her uncomfortable and turn my attention to the dad and the task of concluding last minute arrangements.  They live a good distance from my store, but have given me fairly complete instructions, so the date and time for delivery having been set, they depart, leaving a good bit of evidence of their visit behind.  The scented candle and opened door will rectify that little issue for us fairly quickly.

On the day of the delivery, my piano-moving companion arrives and the trailer is loaded quickly and efficiently.  We’ve done this before, so nothing is going to catch us napping, or so we think.  The first 15 miles of our journey pass uneventfully, but then we leave the pavement of the state highway for the gravel road.  Still no problem.  Next, following the instructions I’ve been given, we turn again into a dirt lane, along which we travel for several miles.  We realize that we’re in what is known as “the boonies”.  Of course, that word comes from the more common “boondocks”, which our military brought home from the Philippines in the early 20th century.   The word “bundok” from a common Philippine dialect means simply, mountain and came to signify any place away from civilization and hard to get to.  (Yeah, only a word-nerd would care.)  Wherever the word came from, we were in it.  The foothills of the Ozarks have many such places, but we seldom deliver pianos to them.

We pass old, tumbledown shacks with porches piled high with debris and multitudes of dogs piling out from under them to bark and snarl at us as we go by, the dirt swirling up behind us.  The one or two individuals we see don’t seem as friendly as the country folk we’re used to when out in most of the more traveled areas.  No raised hands in friendly greeting; no smiles in response to ours.  My faithful sidekick mutters from his side of the truck, “‘Deliverance’! It’s just like the movie all over again.”   Thankfully, following our homemade map, we reach the entrance to the driveway between the fence posts, as it has been described to us, and we turn in.  Just follow the driveway up to the house, the man had said, so we follow the winding course of the driveway, actually just a couple of ruts through the field.  It winds around the edge of the hillside and all we see before us is a couple of decrepit, tumbledown chicken houses.

Surely this can’t be right!  But, we follow the drive as instructed and are steered to a small tin building right between the two long-abandoned chicken houses.  This is obviously the shed where the poultry had been processed over the years, where sick animals would have been treated and feed might have been stored, but there is a car parked in front, so we pull up and go to the door.  The man greets us from inside and shows us where we are to place the piano.  A look around makes it obvious that the family is indeed in residence here, although I have never seen such accommodations.  The shed has a few bare light bulbs strung up on extension cords inside its one-room interior.  There is a wood stove for heat and an ancient, rusted refrigerator, along with an electric hot plate to cook on.  Other than that and a couple of beds in opposite corners, there is nothing but junk in the tiny dark hovel.  The piano is taken off the trailer and moved into the designated location and we prepare to leave, still reeling from the conditions that we have observed.  We are amazed as the gentleman bids us goodbye, just as jovial and pleased to be the new owner of this piano, as if it were the finest grand and we had just placed it into a well-appointed drawing room in his mansion on the hillside.

We are relieved to be out of the area and back onto the highway within minutes, but can’t get over what we have just witnessed.  But, as seems common with events such as this, as quickly as we arrive back at our pleasant comfortable homes, the plight of this family is all but forgotten, except to relate the tale to a few folks who express complete disbelief.

I didn’t think much about it again, until one day about two years later when the Lovely Lady returned from a high school music contest, which she had been asked to judge.  Because of her years as a piano teacher, she, along with a couple of other knowledgeable educators had judged the pianists entered in the contest.  The contestants played their prepared pieces on the Steinway grand piano at the performing arts center; for most of them, the first time they had even sat at a grand piano.  The Lovely Lady told me about one girl in particular, a heavy-set young lady, dressed unfashionably, who was reticent in her responses to the judge’s questions.  She sat at the piano, obviously in awe of such a fine instrument, and took several moments to settle down.  Then, she began to play.  Her playing was confident, the timing impeccable.  She executed the piece with feeling, starting quietly and soaring to a climax of emotion with great musicality, then back down again as the passion of the music ebbed, concluding the performance with beautiful chords and quiet melodies and counter-melodies spiraling down into silence.  As it was related to me by the Lovely Lady, it was not the most polished performance they heard that day, nor the most perfect, but without question, worthy of an “excellent” rating and a great surprise to those present who had been inclined to expect less from the backward young lady.

Yes, it was indeed that young girl who lived in the chicken house, learning to play on a rebuilt seventy-year old clunker of a piano.  In the midst of poverty and lack, accomplishment reared it’s lovely head.  I am still learning that appearances can be deceiving, and presumption is a dangerous path to follow, but this one was a real wake up call, almost a shift in paradigms (if I may use that trendy, trite term).  I have delivered beautiful pianos to astounding homes, the buyers only interested in the integrity of their decor, with no interest whatsoever in the quality of the sound or the touch of the keyboard.  I have also left some homes, having delivered the piano, only to be followed out the door by the whining tone of children asking why their parents bought that stupid thing.  But, I’m fairly certain that I have never before, nor since that day, delivered a more important instrument to a more important customer.  

I don’t know what she has done with her talent and skill since then, but simply to know that this young lady had in two short years developed the joy and confidence that she displayed then, inspires and motivates me to believe that no one, regardless of their environment or financial condition, is beyond hope or expectation of great things.  I pray that it is never otherwise.

Reading the story once more, I’m reminded that all it takes is one real success, in all of our attempts, to make our labor worthwhile.  I’d like to be the “spring of water” described in the passage from Isaiah below.  Yes, there are quite a few scorched places along the way, but the path leads through, so I’ll keep to it. 

Everything, after all, will be all right, so don’t you worry.

“Men in general, judge more from appearances than from reality.  All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”
(Niccolo Machiavelli~Italian writer and statesman~1469-1527)

“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
(Isaiah 58:11 ESV)

New Year’s Eve, 1977.  This young man had made plans.  A beautiful girl…friends…the party would go on into the wee hours.  But, in a single moment the day before, those plans were decimated.  By the beautiful girl’s father, no less.  Yes, he was also my boss, and he had a different idea of what should happen in the early hours of the morning on New Year’s Day.  His concern was with the dawn side of the wee hours, though.  “Everybody will be here at 6:30 to take inventory.  No exceptions.  It’s probably not a good idea to stay out too late.”  What a let down!  I had expected to sleep very late, but instead of that, I would be up before dawn to head for work!  I should have realized that it was a harbinger of what every New Year’s Day would be for the foreseeable future.

Not a single of those inaugural days in the year has passed since then that hasn’t found me counting musical merchandise.  Guitars, amplifiers, instruction books, bongo drums…right down to the little guitar picks; every year, it’s the same thing.  While others sit at home and sip coffee, watching the parades and preparing for the bowl games, I’m here with the Lovely Lady tabulating the quantity of every last item in the music store.  It is one of the things I enjoy the least about being in business for myself, but it has to be done.  The authorities require it.   My banker would be most unhappy if it wasn’t completed.  On top of that, it just makes good sense from a business point of view to be aware of the profit or loss, the gain or shrinkage of the stock, for the year just past.  For the government, the result determines the amount of taxes which may legally be levied on the taxpaying proprietor.  For the banker, the resulting financial statement is a good barometer of the ability of said proprietor to repay any loans which may be requested.  For the business, the numbers serve to give direction for future purchases, and to guide decisions in whether to continue on or abandon, a particular path of marketing.

I hate inventory because of the drudgery.  Count, write, count, write, count, write.  “634, 635, 636…No, I haven’t gotten to the strings yet.  I’ll get to them after I finish the picks.  Now, where was I?  Oh, great!  1, 2, 3…”  When the counting is over, the tabulation begins.  “How much did we pay for the bagpipes?  Did we get them last year, or was that the year before?”  I do not like accounting.  Like Anne in the “Green Gables” books, I would say that there is “no scope for imagination.”  Numbers are so confining, simply enumerators of cold objects.  I hate looking at the guitars on the wall as just an investment.  I’d much rather consider them as exciting pieces of art, which themselves have the capability of producing great beauty.  The music books aren’t just paper and ink, merchandise to offer to customers with cash in hand; they have the potential of unleashing melodies and harmonies that already lie hidden within the musician, opening pathways to sublime worship or freeing hearts to express love.  But, no.  There are 24 guitars hanging here with a combined value of however many dollars have been invested.  Today, several thousand dollars worth of printed paper reside in the bins that yesterday held music, or at least the promise of it.

I have to admit that this is the first year I have actually thought seriously about what we are doing here on this, the most hated of days for me.  I am finally realizing that my music store’s future depends on these numbers.  The viability of my business is tied up in an accurate count of each item.  Quite aside from the fact that my freedom from prison depends on the government being satisfied that the accounting has been made in the absence of fraudulent reporting, the future for the Lovely Lady and me is relying heavily on the completion of this abhorrent task.  So, I go on counting and reporting.  Year after year, the end-of-year accounting determines the direction for the next three hundred sixty-five days and beyond.

Isn’t is amazing how much running a business resembles real life?  For some reason, the end of each year seems to be a logical, one might even say comfortable, place to pause for a moment.  As we prepare to move into the new year, we take a little breather; we look back.  The fatiguing incline leading up through the holidays has winded us.  We are tired and maybe, a little cranky.  But there up ahead, just before we crest the hill, we see a park bench inviting us to rest.  So we sit and gaze back down the path we’ve just traveled, laboring upward, pushing forward to the end of the year.  And from this vantage point, we take inventory of the year; noting there, the joyful celebrations, and on down further, the hard times.  Sometimes we see the long, dark sections of the path which point out the sadness we felt as we thought there was no hope of sunshine ever again.  But, as we look back, we see the progression, the leaning forward into the future which now opens just over the summit at which we rest in this brief moment. 

But, we cannot stay here long.  The accounting is indeed brief, the tabulation must be completed quickly.  Time hurries on and so must we.  I’m finding, as each year passes, that this is an important intermission, this time of inventory.  Decisions are made, directions are adjusted, and the path is taken up again.  We hurry on once more, the goal still ahead and never behind.  I wish it were cut and dried; the addition and calculation of profit and loss as simple as the business proprietor’s bookkeeping.  It is not.  I don’t think it is supposed to be.

So again, the New Year has overtaken us.  I hope your inventory was favorable.  Even if it was not, there is still time.  The year stretches out ahead and allows corrections in our course.  I trust that your reckoning will be accurate and the path clear in front of you.

For me, the physical inventory at the store past, I breathe a sigh of relief and await the next challenge.  No doubt, the morning light will reveal it.  I think I’m ready…

“May God give you…
For every storm a rainbow, for every tear a smile; 
For every care a promise and a blessing in each trial;
For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share;
For every sigh a sweet song and an answer for each prayer.”
(Irish Blessing)

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Jesus Christ took hold of me.”
(Philippians 3:12~NIV)