Month: May 2012

In The Dark

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

The medical bill was lying with the mail on the table.  The boy and I share the same first name and, not recognizing the billing organization, I assumed it might be his, so it waited for his next visit.  He opened it today.  “Dad, this one’s yours,” he called out, apparently happy that he wouldn’t have to pay out any of his own hard-earned money this time.  I took the paper from his hand and perused the information it contained.  As soon as I saw the date, a day in early August last year, my mind darted back to that late night bicycle ride and its disastrous consequences.

The cool new LED light set the Lovely Lady had picked up for me was exactly what I was needing.  Most of my daylight hours are taken up with work related projects, so I was finding myself exercising late in the evening and the darkness prevented bicycling from being one of the options.  I enjoy the bike, and the trail which spans our little town is a great route for riding on.  I do, however, need to see to be able to navigate and the lighting, while adequate for walking and jogging, just isn’t enough for these old eyes to see where I’m going.  The lights were going to eliminate that problem for me.  “I’m going out tonight!”  I told her gleefully.  Installation was a snap and I was out the door about ten-thirty, expecting to be back in forty-five minutes or so.  Things didn’t go according to plan.

I have a good idea of where the accident happened, since I remember clearly the moments before I started down that steep hill.  I don’t remember actually descending the hill at all, nor anything about the accident or the hour following it.  I can only assume that the darkness caused me to misjudge one of the steep slopes and sharp curves, although it has been suggested that some of the wildlife which frequents the area may have figured into the disaster.  Regardless, I had a good bit of road rash and several lacerations, along with a concussion to show for my first night ride.  I have no idea how I found my way back, but somehow, after an hour and a half of being gone, I rolled my bicycle into the backyard, only then becoming aware of my surroundings.  I staggered into the house, suggesting to the Lovely Lady that we should visit the emergency room.  She jokes about my insistence that I change my underwear before going, but I’m kind of proud that my mother’s lessons weren’t completely lost in the fog (“Always put on clean underpants, in case you have to go to the hospital…”).  The bill received this past week was for one of the technicians who was involved with the CT scan.

Many of you are aware that I was emotionally unable to face the bicycle for a number of months, but I will admit today that my biggest challenge was still to come, after I finally mastered the fear of simply mounting the beast once more.  On several occasions, I approached the path that lead down that hill, but turned around before descending it again.  Down that way lay potential disaster and, even a little of the unknown.  I couldn’t face it.  I knew that I had to ride that route again, but each time, the emotional turmoil began anew, causing me to turn back.  Eventually though, I did ride down that steep, curving path, taking the hill and curves like an old woman, I’m sure, but it was accomplished!  Since that day, I have ridden the path numerous times, but I wonder still if I will ever ride it again without the fear or emotion.  Only time will tell.

It may seem like a non sequitur, but you might be interested to know that I called my Mom tonight.  I wanted to be sure and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.  After the phone has rung several times, I hear her voice.  “Hello.”  It is the same voice I’ve heard for years, but it has a different tone to it.  Each time I’ve called her lately, it had been so.  Normally, all it takes is a word or two and she recognizes me, but I have talked with her for several minutes tonight before she asks, “I know I’m supposed to know who you are, but I can’t recall your name.”  Although not completely unexpected, this is the first time she hasn’t known me after a few minutes.  After another exchange or two, she asks the question again, “What did you say your name was?  I’ve forgotten already.”  The thirty minute conversation that follows is like being in a room with a two-year old child who is fascinated with the light switch.  We are in the light for awhile, but in the dark for just as much of the time.  The cognizance is intact one moment, but the next, she wants to know where I live, making an unrelated comment in reply to my answer.  She has visited many times in my home here, and there was a day she could have made the eight-hundred mile trip from her home to mine without the aid of a map of any kind.  Now, we are hard put to navigate a short conversation without being lost numerous times.  Oh, at times, we seem to be on an even keel, with her even asking questions and remembering the names of the subject of her queries, but just as quickly, bewilderment returns and she is a-sea once more.

When we finish our conversation and I have said my goodbyes, I am overcome with emotion.  My Mom, the same woman who taught me to reason and maneuver through the mine-field of conversation, can’t be the person I have just spoken with.  I miss her quick repartee, her humor, and her concern for all the people in my sphere of relationships.  The doctors won’t say that she has any particular disease, but it is obvious that little by little, her mental capabilities are eroding, leaving her, in appearance, the same person she always was, but taking away who she really is and has been.  It is sometimes called, when applied to Alzheimer’s patients, the long goodbye.  Many of the folks who suffer the disease are painfully aware of what is to come and, in moments of awareness, are overcome with sadness and anger at the thief who is stealing their relationships and their minds.  It can be a long, dark road, a road that no one would choose to go down.  I don’t want to walk it with my mother.  There is nothing down that road but disaster and pain.

Just like the bicycle path however, this is a road I know must be taken.  My Dad walks it with her every day.  As much as I want to avoid the pain, this is my Mom.  She needs me to be there, if only for the moments of coherence.  She will not remember tomorrow that we spoke, just as she has forgotten my visit there a few short months ago.  The next time we speak, even my name may not open doors for her.  Still, I think I’ll keep going down that way as many times as I can, pitfalls and all.  Love demands it.  My faith does too.  “Honor your father and mother.”  The rules haven’t changed.

How about you?  Do you have a road you don’t want to travel, a little path you avoid like the plague?  Maybe it’s time to head down that way again.  Relationships with estranged family or friends, apologies needing to be made, deeds long unaccomplished which lie waiting still.  We each have our own bike paths which must be conquered, our own hated roads we must face.

They don’t have to be faced alone.  We are reminded of our Shepherd, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear nothing, for You are with me…”  We are given companions to help us along the way, and friends who are there to cheer us on.

Let’s head down the road together.  It’ll be less lonely that way.

“Two are better than one…If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.”
(Ecclesiastes 4:10)

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”
(Frank A Clark~Columnist and cartoonist~1911-1991)

World’s Greatest Mom

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“Every mom aspires to be the World’s Greatest Mom, and by some crazy quirk of logic, most succeed.”*


In this week preceding the day some politician has randomly designated “Mother’s Day”, possibly driven by payoffs from the flower and greeting card lobbyists, our thoughts seem to go back in time to the days when our own mothers were the moving force in our lives.  The images that are depicted by said industries in their commercials and on their product are of sentimental and unrealistic scenes of domestic bliss.  The regal women in their pretend world are always perfectly coiffed and put-together, make-up applied professionally and coordinated designer clothing clinging wrinkle-free to a model’s body.  I sit here tonight and from nowhere in my dimmest memory, can I draw forth such a vision.

I remember a slightly overweight woman in mule slippers and an old terry-cloth robe, standing at the bottom of the stairs and yelling, “If you don’t get out of bed and down here right now, you’ll get no breakfast, AND you’ll miss your bus!”  The sack lunch we were given wasn’t filled with Lunchables or with Jiff peanut-butter (“Choosy mothers choose Jiff!”) and Smuckers jelly sandwiches (unless those were on sale that week), along with an apple and a note, but was more likely to have a potted meat sandwich (bargain bread with the soupy stuff smeared over it) and some slightly stale potato chips (from the 5 pound bargain package) tucked into a “baggie” inside.  By lunchtime, it would taste like a feast to the hungry urchin into whose hands it had been shoved as he ran to catch the bus.

You see, my Mom never was anything like a “Desperate Housewife” or one of the “Real Housewives of (fill-in-the-blank)”.  She was Mom…sometimes grumpy, sometimes doting…often harried, frequently docile, but always loving and teaching and pushing.  There was never a time when we didn’t know that she wanted the best for her children.  Oh, we didn’t always show her respect and she didn’t always have a quiet demeanor when dealing with us, but there was no doubt that she was on our side.

I learned to think on my feet from Mom, as we sat and argued for hours.  Truly, that trait of mine (the arguing) comes from her and not from my father, who hated arguments of any ilk.  But, I will always have the picture in my mind of Mom, as she stopped to think about a point her antagonist had just made.  She would purse her lips, then stretch them thin, tapping her cheek with a long finger, considering carefully what had been said.  Within seconds, the answer was on her tongue and the verbal joust would resume.  Even into her old age, she has been an able debater, leading some of her children to avoid delicate subjects, should she decide to challenge any random premise.  The skills of logic I learned in those encounters have served well in many situations.  The argumentativeness, I’ve had to work to control a bit more than I’d like to admit.

I could spend hours discussing her traits, good and bad.  The strident defense of her children when they were accused unfairly, the stubbornness of refusing to be bullied into paying fees for useless services, the tirades at us for our lack of initiative in housework…all of these and countless more, went into who the woman was and is, but only one more occurrence will I burden you with today.

I will admit that I was the strangest of her children and the hardest for her to understand.  I would cry at nothing, stomping up to my bedroom and sulking for hours over the least of slights.  I could work with tirelessness on a project that caught my fancy, but then would sit in indolence and procrastination when presented with a job which had to be accomplished, but in which I had no interest.  I remember one particular evening, when I had once again stormed up the stairs long before bedtime and lay sobbing on my bed.  As the time to be asleep passed and my tirade continued unabated, Mom called me downstairs.  At that time of night, it was an action which usually only meant that corporal punishment was imminent.  But, this time, she led me to her chair and, sitting down in it, set me on her lap and just held me.  I was eight, and hadn’t been in this position for a number of years, but it was comforting.  Kindly, she asked what was really bothering me.  I actually didn’t know, but the words just popped out, “I want a puppy!”  My Dad, sitting in his recliner across the room, snorted.  But, Mom just talked with me about the situation, explaining quietly and lovingly that the family dog would have to do for now, since there was no way possible that each of the five kids could have their own pet.  (We weren’t licensed to be a zoo…)  I didn’t really want a puppy; it was just the first thing that came into my head.  But, the loving and tender way that Mom responded was all I needed to calm down and stop crying.  Within a very short time, I was on my way to bed comforted and secure.  It was one of the few times that I dropped right off to sleep upon lying down.  A mother’s love can do that.

Do I have a point?  Just this…the fact that Mom didn’t fit a single one of the “ideal” requirements that makes up the perfect mother in the eyes of the rest of the world, had nothing to do with her ability to do the work that God had set in front of her.  She wasn’t a perfect person in any way, but she was exactly the mother that I needed to help me grow up into a man who could think for himself, learning to love another woman who would also be a “perfect” mother, and becoming a father who could love and teach and support his own children.

By writing this, I mean to honor, not only my own mother, who needed the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon to raise her brood, but I want to honor mothers everywhere who daily do the task in front of them.  It is largely a thankless job for 364 days of the year, but it does continue for every one of those monotonous and unexceptional days, in spite of the lack of notice on our part.  I hope you will take the time to let your mother know of your honor and love, and respect in a very real way, not only this weekend, but also upon every opportunity which presents itself on the other days of the year and indeed, for the rest of her life.

It will only be a partial payment of a debt which is owed her.

“If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been.”
(Robert Brault~American writer)

“Her children stand and bless her…”
(Proverbs 31:28 NLT)

*Robert Brault, “A Robert Brault Reader”, May 5, 2012

Credit Where It’s Due

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“How did you get so good at this?”  The query is posed by the young teenaged girl who is preparing to start marching in the local middle-school band next year.  We’ve done nothing special; simply helped her learn to manipulate the gadgets she will need to move from being a stationary musician to one with a little more mobility.  Nevertheless, she is impressed and has a look of respect in her eyes, a look that unfortunately, she will learn to mask as she grows older and more worldly-wise.

I admit, I am stumped by her question and obvious fascination.  What I’ve done is a small thing and not impressive at all in my eyes (and quite possibly, not in yours), but the question is already before us.  How do you get good at what you do?  I’ve had the inquiry made by any number of curious folks over the years, related to my work; mostly in response to the repairs to musical instruments which I have executed in the course of my work at the music store.

I wish I could offer a wise response.  “Well, child, it’s a combination of education and experience over a lifetime of striving for excellence.”  That would suffice!  It would be arrogant, but the young lady might have left the music store with an even greater sense of awe.  No, I can’t say the words.  I have to consider this for awhile.

I go back in my mind’s eye many years, to the late 1970’s.  The skinny young man stands behind the counter and listens to the old man wax eloquent about the old violin to a customer.  “Notice the tuning pegs – how they are tapered.  That is so they have some friction when they’re pushed in slightly as they turn.  They’ll stay in place if they are set correctly.”  And again, as the young man rides in the passenger seat of the1967 Dodge van which was the store’s delivery vehicle in those days.  “We’ll have to come back later to tune this piano.  It takes some time to acclimate to its new home.  Tune it now and it’ll be out of tune again in a week or two.”  A different occasion, back in the music store and we see the old man demonstrating the principle of striking a harmonic on a guitar string, explaining as he shows how it’s done, that it’s all scientific and mathematical, with beats-per-minute, and sound waves, and nodes.  With just the lightest of touches, he sets the string to vibrating.  The clear, ethereal tone that fills the air is a never-to-be-forgotten exclamation point to the lesson, also never forgotten.

Fast forward a few years and I see the same young man, although now not so skinny, nor quite so young, as he waits for a clarinet to be repaired in the shop where the craftsman works his magic.  As the artisan holds the keys over an alcohol lamp, he talks of “seating” and “leveling” pads.  “The pads have to be perfectly aligned in the keys to achieve a seal.  You never want to take a shortcut.”  Again, the lesson is learned and added to the ever-expanding library of facts and techniques which the young man is amassing.

Tolkien, in one of his poems, tells us that “the road goes ever on and on”, and I’ll not argue at all tonight.  The years have been full of great sources of knowledge, many of them anxious (and a few less so) to share from their treasure trove of lessons learned, until we come to the present day, when that young man has begun to be known as the old guy at the music store.  The amazing thing is that it’s not the end, nor even approaching the end, of the story.  One young man now comes in for an hour every week to learn some of the almost-old man’s secrets, others come at less-scheduled intervals.  So it is that the knowledge passed on from the old man and others, now passes again from an aging man to younger folks.  There is a real joy in sharing the knowledge.  It was given me.  Why should I not freely pass it on?

How did I get so good at this?  If I am good at it, it was a gift.  Yes, there was some labor involved on my part, but I have profited greatly also.  Oh sure, the business has yielded an income, but the real profit has been the joy of seeing more than one generation of young musicians graduate from the childish infatuation with making music to a deep love of music that only years of learning and practice can effect.  I can’t imagine a better paycheck.

We’ve all been given gifts like this.  Obviously, not all in repairing instruments or selling musical gizmos.  Some of us repair cars, some build houses, some cook, some are artists.  I have nothing against those who have chosen to teach these things as a vocation (the laborer is worthy of his/her hire), but for most, the skills and knowledge can be shared freely and should be.  The reward is great, since it’s nothing less than immortality, if you’ll allow me to put it in those words.  I’m not talking about eternal life.  That comes from another Source.  The immortality I speak of is the legacy we leave behind us.  The young men and women to whom I pass my knowledge today are, in reality, learning at the feet of men long dead.  Recipes and patterns and lore from many generations before us are passed on as we share knowledge with our children and grandchildren.  Truly, the road goes ever on and on, paved not only by those who passed before us, but now by us and soon, by the next generation.

Oh!  I’m not finished with learning, either.  I still find that there are new lessons in the University of Life which come my way almost daily.  Why don’t you come by the store sometime and tell me what you know about fuel injection in the modern combustion engine?  I’ll show you all I know about tuning with the harmonics on a guitar string.  I promise that one of us will learn something.  

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
(Sir Isaac Newton-English physicist and mathematician~1643-1727)

 
“Docendo discitur”  
“Ancient Latin quotation meaning roughly, “By learning you will teach.  By teaching, you will learn.”)

Clicking My Heels

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country…”*

I went back home today.  Well okay, I didn’t really take the eight hundred mile trip between where I’ve called home for the last thirty-five years and the place where I grew up, but I did go in my head.  I have actually made the physical trip several times over the last three decades, but each time, I was disappointed in some way.  I like it better in my head.

I walked across the street from the old frame house where I spent most of my childhood.  In my mind’s eye I am not an adult, but a barefoot, scruffy kid in cutoff blue jeans.  As I leave the searing hot pavement, I see on the left, my Grandpa sitting on the screened in porch of his home, the house Dad had moved in for him and Grandma.  I sing out a careless, “Hi, Grandpa!”, but for some reason, in my imagination, it is the voice of my grandson I hear and not my own.  With no breath to call out in reply, he raises his hand and smiles, just as he always did, to anyone who looked his way.  His life for many years consisted of just that, sitting in the old metal lawn chair on the porch and watching the world go by, or sitting in his easy chair inside watching the world go by on television; the days broken up only by difficult walks between his roosting places.  Emphysema stole away not only his breath, but his life, the disease itself precipitated by years of smoking and laboring in toxic environments.  But, I pass on by with a wave of my own, oblivious to his discomfort, content that he is simply there.

I walk beside the foundations of the old house, a dim memory for me; it was torn down when I was five to clear the property for our mobile home.  My only real remembrance of that structure was of filling the cellar with dirt and concrete pieces after the old deserted house was razed.  Up ahead a few feet, the place where the mobile home sat for a few years.  The trailer had been home to my family of seven for a number of years, traveling all the way to Florida when Dad was stationed there with the Navy, and back when he was discharged.  We were crammed in there like sardines, but we never realized that it was a hardship. In my mind, I replay the day we brought the bull snake in from the field behind, thinking it was dead, only to have the angry fellow loose in the trailer and terrorizing the whole family an hour or two later, when we returned to find the empty gallon jar in which we had left him.  Other memories are stirred by the place, but they’ll wait for another day…

Past the trailer site is the empty field where we played football, basketball and sometimes, softball.  The decrepit light poles that Dad dug post holes for and then ran wires to are still present, but there are lights at the top no longer; the wires have broken and rotted or been cut away years ago.  Still, I remember like it was yesterday, the two long afternoons and evenings when I used a shovel and hoe to clear away every vestige of buffel grass, so that the boy’s church group would have a place to play basketball when we were temporarily kicked out by the church where we had been playing.  The buffel grass is knee high once again.

Landmarks jump to mind:  the “little house” – really just a ramshackle old shed where we played in the rafters and on the tin roof, as well as sneaking a cigarette or two from our stolen stash.  It’s long gone; torn down in the interest of safety.  There’s the place where one brother built a pig pen; the cause of an argument between him and my mother about keeping it cleaned up.  Mom: “It’ll just be one great big lob lolly!”  Brother: “It will not be a lol lobby! I’ll keep it shoveled out every morning.”  To this day, I don’t know what either a lob lolly, or a lol lobby, is.  (The pigs did fine, either way.) 

Back there is the place where “The Hole” used to be.  We were good with shovels when it came to taking dirt out of the ground.  Not so good with putting it back.  This particular place is epic in my memory, the site of many dirt clod wars, and not a few battles with homemade slingshots loaded with the fruit of the china berry tree.  The enemy usually were armed with Daisy BB guns, but we held our own and often prevailed.  The hole is now little more than a depression in the field as I walk by.

The fence stops me here, but there was no such barrier present for many years while I was growing up.  On past that boundary lies the irrigation canal, a highway to adventure any day we chose to wander along it…beside it, inside it, bridging it with two by fours…even straddling it, with legs spread wide, one foot on each of the vertical concrete sides.  An excursion along the canal never failed to net us a bounty of adventure and a mishap or two.

The memories could go on forever, but suddenly, a stronger realization takes hold.  This can never be any more than a stroll down memory lane.  I’ll never physically make that trip again, since the property is no longer in the family.  My parents haven’t lived in the house across the street for fifteen years and will probably never live there again.  Grandpa has passed on, and the boy who enjoyed the amazing adventure of growing up there is no longer.  Now a grandpa myself, even if my feet could ever walk that winding path again, there has been a lot of water move past in the stream of life.   

I can’t go home.

It’s a sobering thought.  The comfort of home and loved ones lying behind is a strong inspiration.  It encourages and motivates us to keep going when the path ahead is as dark as night.  I still remember the emotions that have been evoked every single time I have seen the old place in the rear view mirror as I have left. I remember my tears, thirty-some years ago, as the Lovely Lady and I drove away and headed back north at the end of my first visit back after leaving.  Her selfless words to me then are still strong in my memory.  “I’ll move back here with you if you want…”   But I knew, even then, that I couldn’t go home.  Oh, I have visited and enjoyed the visits immensely.  I have taken the trip down the roads of memory more times than I will admit.  But, home is now in a different locale.  Memories have been made in a new place.

And, that’s the way it works.  We move forward.  Unlike me, some of you will do it from the same physical location all of your lives, but you don’t stand still.  All of us mature and grow, and the world around us changes.  We can’t go back and I don’t believe that any of us really would, even if it were possible.

You know, if you have read many of my posts, that I love the joys that are remembered, and the life lessons that are brought to mind by our past.  But, one foot after another, step by step, mile by mile, we  are still moving along the path of life.  We have learned from the past, we have reveled in the love and shared experiences.  But our goal, our vision, is always out ahead of us.  If we look back for too long, longing for a simpler time, or yearning for joys past, we miss the exhilaration of today and the expectation of tomorrow. 

I like the poem, that Tolkien used in different form a number of times in his books, about The Road.  His idea, that stepping onto the road outside our front door would sweep us to places we could never dream of, strikes a note with me.  The adventure is not behind, it is still ahead.  We advance with eager hearts, knowing that just around the next bend, challenges and joys, along with some sorrows, lie waiting to be faced.

I guess in a way, you could say that while you can’t go back home, you can go ahead to home.  And, along the way, home comes right along with us.

There’s no place like home.

“For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”
(Hebrews 13:14)

“Because, this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”
(Reepicheep, the mouse~”Voyage of the Dawn Treader” from “The Chronicles of Narnia~C.S.Lewis)

“Still round the corner there may wait 
A new road or a secret gate, 
And though I oft have passed them by, 
A day will come at last when I 
Shall take the hidden paths that run 
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
(“The Road Goes Ever On” from “The Return of the King” ~J.R.R. Tolkien)

*”You Can’t Go Home Again, Thomas Wolfe, Harper Brothers, 1940

Hunting the Fox

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

We were too old to play hide-and-seek, but we were certainly doing just that.  There was a rather large group of adults, both young and middle-aged, looking for the one who was “it”.  We did this same thing every Friday night during the summer months for at least a couple of years that I remember.  Unlike the times we played this game as children, we had not started with an hour-long game of “Not It”.  No, strangely enough, it was normal for the person who was going to hide to actually volunteer, sometimes even to demand the privilege, to hide first.  The game only got stranger.

We always started in a parking lot, standing around our cars.  Every single one of the vehicles had an extra antenna attached, indicating to the world that we were “CBers”.  The rage was in full bloom.  “Break one-nine for a smokey report,” or “Ten-four, good buddy!” were the phrases of the day, and we jumped in with both feet.  Cruising took on new interest.  No longer did we simply ride up and down the main drag, listening to the rock and roll tunes blasting from our 8-track players; waving at friends when we spotted them going the other direction.  Now, we communicated!  From one car to another!  You might say that we were racing, pell-mell into the communication age.  There were certainly no cell-phones and, before CBs, when we got into our cars, we were cut off from the world.  Granted, the range of the quirky units was limited, but we kept upgrading, buying signal amplifiers and whip antennas to extend the range.  And now, instead of chance meetings on the road, we located our friends and stopped for ice cream at the DQ, or for a Coke at the Town & Country.  It was cutting edge technology and we weren’t going to be left behind.

The group in the parking lot on Friday’s however…we were just there for fun.  This was our nearly grown-up version of hide-and-seek, but we called it the “Fox Hunt”.  The rules were simple; Only one person would hide and the others would look for them.  The “fox” had ten minutes to hide, car and all, within a prescribed area.  When he or she was hidden the best they could, they would transmit on the designated channel for one minute.  Every ten minutes after that, they had to transmit for another minute.  During this time, the hunters would drive around, checking their signal strength meters as the transmission was on the air.  Then the airwaves would be busy for several minutes as each person reported the reading they got from their location.  A stronger reading meant they were closer, so everyone would move toward the locale reported by the person with the strongest reading.  Then everyone would drive around that area, awaiting the next transmission by the “fox”.

The hunts could go on for a couple of hours, or they could end within a few moments of the start, depending on the skill of both the fox and the hunters.  Eventually, a few run-ins with the local gendarmes required a venue change and we moved out in the country.  The possibility that a suspicious (and well-armed) farmer might find us before the others did only made the wait in the parked car more exciting.  You may laugh, but when you were being hunted, the adrenalin would pump, the heart would pound, and it was as stimulating as anything most of us had done up to that point.

From my great vantage point of middle age, I can hear the voices even now, demeaning the game.  “How lame!”  “Why would you waste your time?”  Today, it is the voices of the younger folks I hear, disparaging the activity, with a shake of the head and a sniff, as if to assure you that they wouldn’t dream of doing anything so juvenile and primitive.  Almost forty years ago, it was the older folks who couldn’t understand why we would fritter away our evenings chasing around the countryside, grown up, but still children at heart.

In my mind, I see my grandchildren just last week, in a huddle back in the den, the oldest explaining the parameters of the game.  “We have to stay inside to hide.  We can’t hide where Grandma’s lamp is, or she’ll get upset.  I’ll be it. You guys hide now!”  The kids scatter, with the instigator staying put and counting to forty.  Don’t ask why forty.  It’s just the number he counts to.  The nice thing about this game is that the seeker always knows where to look.  The toy cupboard in Grandma’s sewing room can fit the whole group and since they don’t like to hide alone, they can always be found there.  Every time.  My guess is that they’ll figure out the point of the game soon enough, but for now, I like the version where they hide and get found.  Together.

And, as the scene in my mind shifts, I see teenagers as well as adults, both young and older ones, playing their version of “Fox Hunt” as they sit at their computers and experience the “first person” games, connected to friends and people they will never know, via the Internet.  They hide and they seek, the goal – to find their opponent and defeat him in the scene being played out on their screens.  The adrenalin pumps, the hearts pound, and the cycle continues.

I’m not sure what the persistent game of hide-and-seek shows about us, except to say this.  I have sat hidden and dreaded the moment of being found, almost as much as I knew subconsciously that I wanted to be found.  We always knew that eventually the seekers will discover our hiding place.  I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.  The few times the Fox Hunts ended by calling in the Fox, and admitting the defeat of the hunters, it was a disappointment.  On any given night, when the Fox was captured, we would all stand around their hiding place, talking and bragging about how close we had been, the Fox bragging about how long he/she had eluded capture.  Then we would head to Sambo’s for some coffee or to the Whataburger for a late-night snack.  On the nights we had failed, we went our separate ways, without the camaraderie of exulting and replaying the chase in repetitive, boring detail.  What a letdown!

I bet you know people who are hiding and need to be found.  I do too.  They hide deep inside their emotions, and sometimes in depression, but they are still right there, hoping against hope that someone will find them.  I see some of them hiding in their possessions, buying clothes and cars and useless stuff.  Some hide within anger and resentment, daring you to find them.  There are an amazing number of hiding places, including the church and the workplace, in the public eye and in the back alleys.  The addicts long to be found, as do the workaholics.  All hiding.  All needing the release of being found.

It’s up to those of us who have already been found to seek.  And, we almost certainly will have to be persistent.  Unfortunately, they won’t all be hiding in the toy closet. 

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
(Luke 19:10~NLT)

“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
(Zora Neale Hurston~American folklorist and writer~1891-1960)

Residence Evil

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The wind was howling, tossing the branches of the chinaberry trees around like feathers, and the rain was pelting the windows already.  The main storm wouldn’t arrive for hours yet, but the early effects of the hurricane were already in evidence.  Inside the house, all were on edge.  If you had asked the ten-year-old, the youngest of the five children interned in the residence, he would have assured you that he was actually excited.  A real hurricane!  Headed straight for them!  Secretly though, he was frightened.  What if the structure of the house wasn’t strong enough?  What if the flooding which was predicted came up into the building?  His Mom and Dad had taken the necessary precautions; the windows had been taped to keep them from shattering, there was plenty of food in the house, and even several gallons of drinking water.  What if it wasn’t enough? 

He didn’t voice his fears.  The bravado that regularly kept him from being the target of too much bullying by older siblings had been developed by long experience.  No chink in the armor of machismo could be revealed.  There were too many people eager to jump at any opportunity to tease and harangue.  He knew better than to blubber out his terror.  He wasn’t afraid, he was excited!  But, that didn’t keep him from listening to the radio as the announcers told of impending doom for the entire area.  His mother was glued to the little transistor set, when she wasn’t preparing sandwich material.  “You never know when you’ll have a chance later…”  On top of the stove, a large stainless steel pan of eggs was boiling, an essential ingredient to her famous egg and tuna salad concoction.  At the very least, they wouldn’t go hungry.

And still, the radio droned on.  “We’ll see the main storm slamming into the coast at about eleven-thirty tonight, with the eye coming ashore about three hours after that.”  For some reason, the eye seemed to be the thing to fear.  The experts always warned about that specifically.  “Never go outside in the eye of the storm.  It’s very dangerous!  Even though it seems calm, the winds will return, without warning, from the other direction.”  He imagined, erroneously, that this must have been where the term “evil eye” came from. It seemed to the young boy that any part of the storm bearing down on them must be inherently evil.

But, as was usual with four boys in the house, a fracas arose soon enough.  Perhaps the nervous energy was the cause, but more probably, it was just the fact that they were all cooped up…and it was what they always did.  This time though, it would escalate with alarming haste.  The cause of the altercation is long lost in the mist of the years, but within a few seconds, instead of just talking trash or hollering, “Did not!” to counteract the opponent’s “Did too!”, the youngest, standing near the sink in the kitchen had flipped a spoonful of warm dish water on one of the older boys.  The older boy grew visibly angry and chased the youngest around the dining room a time or two, both scattering chairs in their scrambling around.  As they ran, the older combatant spotted a means of vengeance, his only thought in that instant being “an eye for an eye.”  Water had been the start of it, and a source of water to repay his tormentor was at hand.  A moment later, without a second’s thought to the ramifications, a cup was dipped into the pan of boiling eggs on the stove and the contents were flung right at the abdomen of the oncoming youngster.

The fracas ended abruptly as screams tore the night, louder even than the shrieking wind around the edges of the house.  First aid was rendered, with the older boy assisting, all the while apologizing profusely.  The storm outside was forgotten as antibiotic ointment was applied, along with a mother’s sympathy (and a few stern words to both miscreants).  For some reason, the possibility of danger outside was not nearly as important anymore.  The very real pain of the burn on his body seemed to magically relieve the fear of the impending turbulence in the atmosphere.  The rest of the night was spent, not in terror of the wind and water, but in pain from the injury which had occurred.

There is a passage in one of the first books in “The Lord Of the Rings” trilogy, wherein one of the main character’s companions speaks his opinion of the bad situation in which they find themselves.  “The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc (goblin) that one fears.”  It fits the situation above to a tee.  The possibilities of danger from the storm completely occupy the boy’s mind until a more pressing thought takes over.  “The danger is inside here, right now!”  At that point, the imagined or predicted disaster is forgotten and reality shoves its way in.  How quickly, the perspective shifts!

The preacher is begging to come to the pulpit, moralizing about danger lurking in the place we least expect it, but we’ll keep him in the pew for today.  True, more could be said, but I’m confident that it need not be spelled out for you.  Your quick minds are already leaping to situations; memories are already replaying themselves in your heads.  My work here is done.

Sufficient for the day, is the evil which is already present therein. 

“Not half the storms that threatened me 
     E’er broke upon my head,
Not half the pains I’ve waited for 
     E’er racked me on my bed.
Not half the clouds that drifted by 
     Have overshadowed me
Nor half the dangers ever came 
     I fancied I could see.”
(Anonymous~circa 1900)

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
(Matthew 6:34~NLT)

*”The Fellowship Of The Ring”, J.R.R. Tolkien, originally published 1959

Overdrawn

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I have words to spend and sometimes spend them foolishly…squandering verbs and nouns, sending metaphors askew, and using similes like fireworks whose sparks often fail to flame…*

That descriptive language is the introduction to a book compiled of articles by a small-town newspaper editor, who was also a popular author of a number of books.

I wish I had said the words myself.

The problem is that, in spite of the claims, writers like the one who penned those introductory phrases seem to keep their words in a very efficient bank, making withdrawals at regular intervals, giving instructions to the bank teller to face the verbs all in the same direction, never having more commas in the bottom of the bank bag than will be needed, with none of the adjectives torn or taped together in the center.  When their words and punctuation are laid out on the page, they obediently fall into place without complaint, causing nary a note of discord.

My words are not so well put together, having been kept under my mattress for too many restless nights or hidden in the piano, the vibrations of too many early morning practice sessions causing them to settle into an disorganized mess.  (Some settling of contents may occur in transit.)

It is a chore to disentangle the active verbs from the passive, and for some reason, the modifiers will dangle.  I do have at least a few words to spend, but as I pull them out of my pocket, there seems to be more than a little fluff mixed in.  Most nights, I still manage to pull enough of them together to get by.

I had thought earlier of describing the words as disciplined soldiers, moving where they are directed, marking time at that pause, doing an about face at the end of that sentence, and holding a straight line as they march in step with each other.

I have no such words at my command.

It is true that, some days, the words come unbidden, awaiting their turn impatiently to drop onto the page.  On days such as those, these posts seem to write themselves, with only a small amount of supervisory vigilance.

Not tonight.

I sat at the computer earlier and shouted, “Forward, March!”

No response.  Nothing.  The soldiers all seem to be AWOL.

Maybe my Sergeant Major act was too intimidating for them.  Moving on, I searched under the mattress and found nothing there but a lot of whiny adjectives, and I certainly can’t use them all at once.  Incompetent and ignorant, along with a stubborn and idiotic mixed in here and there, would certainly make poor conversation, so they have been stuffed back under the mattress to await another day.

It would seem the jumble hidden in the bottom of the piano can yield no better, with way too many exclamation points making their way to the top.

No.  It’s safe to say the bank account is lacking in capital tonight.

Years ago, there was a description for wealthy folks who had lost their fortune. I remember hearing an older well-to-do widow say it once.

I think he is embarrassed.

Those words describe me tonight, and are applicable to more than just the state of my verbal bank account.

Sometimes the result of a stressful day is that there are not enough words which can be found to piece together anything suitable for the readers.  Today was such a day, with angry patrons and inept vendors, along with an error or two on my part.  On such occasions, perhaps it is better to defer to another time.

Tomorrow, possibly.

Maybe a few ideas can be squirreled away during the daytime hours, to draw interest until the next opportunity to invest them comes along.

I’ll be especially careful to save a few more conjunctions.  I always like the way they work together with other words.

I think I can even find a helpful adverb or two to spend, like happily and friendly.  I’m sure I can scrape together enough to do something worthwhile.

Can we make it a date, then?

You won’t need to bring anything at all.

It will be my treat.

 

 

 

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
(Mark Twain~American author and humorist~1835-1910)

A gentle word deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.
(Proverbs 15:1 NLT)

 

*from I Have Words To Spend (Reflections of a Small-Town Editor), by Robert Cormier, published by Delacorte Books, 1994.

 

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Vapor

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment
My mind goes wandering and my heart tags along.

The old trite saying tells us that “home is where the heart is”.  Granting the general veracity of the adage, it seems that at times, the heart is a little confused about where it lives.  Perhaps it remembers a different home in which it once sojourned.  Perhaps it is looking forward to a future one as well.

It appears that moving past middle age into the “silver years” has led me to reconsider my youthful resoluteness that I rather like this earthly home.  I’m reminded that this mortal existence is not the final stop for any of us.  For a number of years, one of my favorite quotations has been these words spoken over sixty years ago by C.S. Lewis: “Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive….We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects. And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life.”*  It’s an incredible and humbling thing to consider the import of the idea.  There is a different home in the future for all of us.  Our path and choices today will determine where each of us will spend those ages of immortality.
That’s not exactly what I’m thinking about tonight, though.  I really love the life I’ve been blessed to live right now.  After amazingly full days like today, perhaps there are a few second thoughts about how much I love it, but they soon pass and I consider how privileged am I to be involved in the lives of so many fine human beings (and a few not-so-fine ones).  Yet, time after time over the last few years I have sat and reminisced, both alone and with old friends, about days gone by.  There’s a certain yearning that pulls us back, perhaps remembering that the days were less busy, the hours less demanding.  It may be that the years color the memories, making them more pleasant than the reality of living them, but they are still enjoyable and enticing.
So, does that mean that my heart is still back there and not in the here and now?  Is the past really home?  The answer to both questions is an emphatic “No!”  I wouldn’t go back for all the treasure that could be offered.  You see, I’ve figured out that the beauty, the allure of the past, is that events have moved on.  I’ve lived through the disasters, the triumphs, and they are over.  But even today, my memory is not so bad that I don’t remember the frustration of raising teenagers, and of dealing with the emotion and childishness of family squabbles.  In my near senility, I have not lost the feeling of terror when accidents occurred, the sadness when death took loved ones.  The glasses I am wearing are not so rosy that I don’t see truth, but they are colored with the satisfaction of moving on, of coming through.  Emotions rise and I feel pride as I remember the generosity of my son as he shares with the whole family, and the tender heart of my daughter as she cries with me over my Grandma’s passing.  Those memories and many more like them color my consideration of loved ones in my life still today, because history is folded into the present and makes up who they are and who I am.
But time won’t wait.  We live in the present, with new experiences continuing to make us into who we are becoming.  What a wonderful gift, to be able to look back, enjoying the memories which are evoked by the glance behind.  And, what incredible anticipation is ours, as we look ahead to where the path is leading.  There are still a few more corners to turn, still a few more hills to climb before we arrive at our destination.  Of all the gifts, I’m thinking that I’m most thankful for the blank page of the day just ahead, awaiting our first step into it, our first words coloring the empty space.  Here is where the past and the future meet.  This is the place where we set the memories, about which we’ll reminisce in years to come, into the history books of our minds. 
That’s it for today.  No stories.  No moral.  No instructions.  Some days are like that.  We live, we love, we learn. 
We keep walking.  Together, I hope.
Photo by Sharafat Khan
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; 
His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
Great is your faithfulness.”
(Lamentation 3:22,23 ESV)
“We all have our time machines.  Some take us back; they’re called memories.  Some take us forward; they’re called dreams.”
(Jeremy Irons~English actor)

*from “Transposition and Other Addresses” C.S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles, 1949

The Art of Flim Flam

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“They stole a quarter of a million dollars from the kids!”  The television camera was focused on an angry father, standing in the midst of a mob of other parents, all of them just as angry as he.  The reporter illuminated.  “It appears that the travel agent who was entrusted with the job of arranging the Hawaii trip for these local band kids has disappeared with all the money.”  As the story unfolded, we learned that it was likely that the man had invested the money unwisely and was unable to produce either the cash or the tickets and lodging for the scheduled trip.  Three hundred children, disappointed and disillusioned, will not make the anticipated journey to the island paradise because of one man’s greed.

I’m angry, along with the parents.  But, as I listened to the newscaster, I was reminded that it happens all the time.  In the mid nineteen-nineties, the local Christian university was swindled out of two million dollars by a “philanthropic” firm who had claimed that the school’s investments of cash would result in significant increases due to donations from charitable organizations.  It turned out to be a “ponzi” scheme, netting the swindler huge sums of cash and leaving the university and many other organizations in serious financial straits.

As I continued to consider the situation, I realized that my frustration with scams goes back a lot further than even that relatively recent event.  I remember a day in the early nineteen-sixties.  The phone in the living room rang, to be answered by my oldest brother.  The voice on the other end of the line informed him that the call was from a local radio station and that our household had been selected as winners of the first prize in their current giveaway.  The prize?  A brand new color television!  Delivery details would be attended to by a popular appliance store immediately.  “Enjoy your new television!”  The caller hung up.  When my brother replaced the receiver, he turned to us in shock and repeated the conversation.  We were ecstatic!  A color TV?  We didn’t even have a black and white set!  A color TV!

Our elation lasted for days.  The next day, by chance, a station wagon, with the logo of a local appliance store plastered on the door, turned into the next door neighbor’s circle drive.  We were at the car in a flash.  “You want the house over there!  We’re getting the free television!”  The confused driver looked down at his paperwork and then back up at us, saying with a smile on his face,  “No, this is where I’m supposed to be.  I think someone is pulling your leg.”  We went home disappointed, but not discouraged.  For the next few days, we expectantly kept an eye on the road in front of the house, but the possibility that the man’s words might be true started to take root in our minds. Finally, after a week had elapsed, the skepticism was full grown and we admitted that we had been tricked.  Some teenager was just having fun at our expense.  It was nothing more than a prank call.  I think I was scarred for life.

Prank calls are supposed to be short and amusing.  “Is your refrigerator running?  Then, you better go catch it!”  “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?  You really should let him out!”  That’s the way prank calls are intended to work.  Ask the leading question and then spring the trap.  The victim is annoyed and the payoff is immediate.  There is no long term damage, no waiting for the conclusion.  This…this was diabolical!  The prankster could only have imagined that there was any mental anguish, could only hope that his words had the desired effect.  This one succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with the gullible children at my address, but he would never know it.  It has to be the cruelest of all phone pranks, with no payoff at all for the culprit, just a desire to cause emotional trauma and the imagination that it would succeed.

I exaggerate the mental anguish, but I still remember the feeling like it was yesterday.  I could not believe that there were such cruel people in the world.  Up to that point, the meanest humans I knew were my older brothers – and I didn’t want to know anyone meaner.  This though…this took cruelty to a new level.  I didn’t like the feelings of wealth, the joy of ownership, followed so quickly and conclusively by the assurance of abject loss and humiliation.

Although the reality is considerably different, I imagine that the feelings are the same for the kids in the band.  They were promised a trip to a tropical paradise and reveled in the plans they were making, the excitement of anticipation.  Today, they are derailed and inconsolable.  The conviction of good things to come has been replaced with certainty of disaster.  Not only money was stolen from them; their hopes have been pilfered from under their noses.  It is possible that some will be scarred for life.

The reality is that life is replete with con artists.  The truth is that we will all be scarred by these individuals.  Can I go one step further and tell you that you probably look at one of them every morning?  No, not the person you wake up next to, although they may be one also.  I’m referring to the person at whom you gaze in the mirror.  We all “play the angles”, making promises that we cannot (or don’t intend to) keep in order to gain something.  I’m reminded that I presented my best side to win the Lovely Lady’s heart prior to our marriage, but the dissimulation was dropped upon achieving the goal, as is often the case.  My guess is that there were a few moments (or possibly hours) of lost hope on her part, the knowledge of the entire flawed package bringing recognition of the flim-flam game which had been played on her.  To her credit, she has had the patience to work through those first disappointments and I’ve grown a bit more mature in making improvements on the original product.  There are still moments, though…

We could go into the causes and cures for the scams that continue throughout our lives, but volume upon volume has been written to explain both.  For those held in the snare and tight grip of hopelessness and despair, there are counselors who are much better prepared to help than I.  I will say this, though.  Sometimes, we need look no further than the con-man (or woman) in the mirror to determine much of the problem.  Unreasonable expectations are placed on many relationships by both parties, with greed entering the picture from both angles.  When I was a child, my greed for a prize of epic proportions outweighed my suspicions that I had been tricked.  Most scams cannot operate without the victims’ greed being a large part of the equation.  It has become anathema in recent years to “blame the victim”, but I can’t help but remember my Mama’s wisdom, when I would run to her for sympathy after being jostled or hit by a sibling.  She would say unsympathetically, “If you hadn’t been standing where you shouldn’t have been, you couldn’t have been hurt.”  While it is not always true (the band kids stand out as a prime example), most scams immediately fall on their faces without willing and greedy victims.

Check your heart.  Are you in this venture for yourself?  Are you in it to benefit others?  There is no guarantee of success either way, but if the latter is true, the damage to yourself will be minimized.  If I expect no personal gain, the failure of the venture simply encourages me to be more disciplined in the next attempt.  The crooks and liars can’t hurt you if you have nothing in the game to lose.  The best example of this I can point to?  None better than the Savior.  The wicked men who sat in judgment of Him didn’t kill Him.  He freely gave what they thought they were taking.  Long before that, without taking thought to His personal rights, He laid down  his position in Heaven to become like us and walk this soil as we do. 

Too simplistic?  It’s all I’ve got.  I’m convinced that it’s all there is.  When we give up our demands of what we desire, we give.  Period.  No more scarring.  No more disillusionment.   No more lost color televisions!

 I’m not there yet.  There’s still a good bit of that road in front of me.  But, the feet are moving.  I’m still alive, and there’s still hope. 

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
(Matthew 6:21 NLT)

“If you’re not greedy, you will go far, you will live in happiness too, 
Like the oompa – loompa – doompity do.”
(from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl~British children’s author~1916-1990)

More Than Two Cents’ Worth

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Rain is falling and the lightning flashes periodically.  Rumbles of thunder resound, sending the black dogs under the storage shed seeking a hiding place.  I know that they have a good strong house, but for some reason, they aren’t reassured by the plastic structure with only two plastic flaps between them and the turmoil from the skies.  So, both cower in the dirt under the shed.  Maybe they’re the smart ones.
I wonder…Do we have a false sense of security?  How many times have we seen confidence shattered as the unsinkable, unbeatable, and invincible are swept away by circumstances and powers beyond our control?  Billions of dollars are lost as stock markets fall and money invested in “can’t miss” acquisitions turns out to be nothing more than speculation and fool’s gold.  A ship that can’t be sunk goes down on its maiden voyage, scuttled by something that was unseen until moments before the impact.  The greatest military might in the world is defeated by an upstart country of 13 small colonies and virtually no trained military men.
We even put our trust in men and women who turn out to be frauds.  More than that, those who have proven to be trustworthy for years and years stumble and founder.  Marriages fail after twenty, thirty, even forty years, destroyed by unfaithfulness.  People we respect lose their moral compasses, pursuing paths completely inconsistent with their past and their verbal affirmations.  Our faith in humans is shaken again and again.
Am I preaching?  It would appear so, since the tenor of this post seems to be pointing out our misplaced trust in all the wrong things.  Man-made things, whether they be structures or temperaments, buildings or character traits, are all flawed in their framework.  The idea that a thing conceived and made by a broken creature can endure in the face of the power and testing of the Creator is ridiculous in its foundational principle.  As the power of the forces pitted against it is unleashed, the cracks and flaws in the design and construction will always be brought to light.
When we trust in the might of men, we trust in a shadow, a puff of smoke.  It is here today, gone into the ether tomorrow.  My mind can’t help but be directed to our national motto, printed on our coins since the middle of the nineteenth century.  Much maligned in recent years; possibly on the brink of extinction in our current course, it is, nonetheless, still the only sane course for fallen man.  “In God We Trust.”
Francis Scott Key penned the words in 1814, and we know them today as our National Anthem.  The words which inspired our national motto read:
“And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Congress, in 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, a terrifying period in our history, with more than ample cause to acknowledge the erroneousness of trust in man’s institutions, shortened the phrase from that powerful verse and had the words “In God We Trust” stamped on the two-cent coin for the first time in U.S. history.  I have the privilege to possess one of these coins, and it never fails to move me powerfully when I hold it in my hand and think of that horrible time in our nation’s history, but also the simple faith of our leaders in an all powerful God, who values truth and justice above all of our petty desires.  The coin is worn and dirty, passed from hand to hand for a century and a half, with almost no monetary value, but the motto is still there, reminding that in spite of our shortcomings, our stupidity, and our arrogance, the Creator’s wisdom, and strength, and love trumps our weakness every time.  I don’t think I could part with it for any amount of money.
Had enough of the preaching?  Okay, I’m coming down from behind the pulpit in a moment.  Just one more reminder:  The psalmist knew whereof he spoke when he penned the words in Psalms 20:7.  “Some trust in chariots and horses.  We trust in the name of the Lord, our God.”
That said, I’m still headed indoors during this storm.  I do know enough to come in out of the rain…
“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.”
(Alexander Pushkin~ Russian Poet~1799-1837)
“But courage, child!  We are all between the paws of the true Aslan.”
(C.S. Lewis)