Month: March 2023

The Old Barn in Spring

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

My father told of walking in the early 1950s across the yard beside what is now my home to reach Dr. Wills’ barn and pick up a gallon of fresh milk from his Jersey cows. As he told me the story, I could almost see him and his brother, my Uncle Edward, striding across this very field and then my yard.

I stood in the field this afternoon, soaking in the spring warmth and letting the memories wash over me.

I never knew, until the last years of his life, that Dad had ever been to this little town before my brothers and I settled here after leaving South Texas in the seventies.

I think I understand, a little, why it felt so much like coming home when I first visited here. It has never felt different in the nearly half-century since.

But, I wonder sometimes if that’s a little how it will feel to walk into our forever home.

I think it might.

Home. Where we belong.

I hope it’ll be springtime. With two brothers carrying bottles of fresh milk home for breakfast.

And wildflowers everywhere.

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2023. All Rights Reserved.

Endings Become Beginnings

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Abnormal.

That was the one-word description I read when I checked the medical app a couple of weeks ago.  I had received an email informing me the doctor had posted the result of my recent procedure, so I thumbed my way through the sign-in process to get the good news.

It was what I was expecting.  Good news.  I’d like to believe I’m not a perpetual pessimist, expecting the worst all the time.  Still, I wasn’t shocked to read the word I found there.

Abnormal.

There was nothing else, except a reminder of an appointment with the surgeon in a week.  On the day of the Vernal Equinox.

It seemed appropriate.  The end of a season.  The beginning of another.  Both on the same day.

One, I have grown to detest.  The other, I love.  The reader will no doubt draw their own conclusion as to which is which.

I waited.  Concentrating on the word, abnormal, I waited.

I had an inkling of the meaning.  Last year, a similar procedure yielded the word precancerous.  Now, this follow-up procedure had yielded a new word.

It’s funny, the things one’s brain will jump to, given time.  And, I had plenty of time on my hands.

Abnormal is the opposite of normal.  Somehow, we prefer the latter to the former.  It seems odd, because we don’t really care for average, which is surprisingly similar to normal.

Next, my mind landed on the word I may have been searching for in the first place: peculiar.  It is a word which twins abnormal rather well, don’t you think?

We think of peculiar as meaning odd, or strange.  That’s the same as abnormal, is it not?

But then, there’s another definition that says peculiar means belonging exclusively to one genre, area, or person.

And, that’s me.  Perhaps, you too.

The Fisherman who came to be known as The Rock gave us the description a couple of thousand years ago.

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (1 Peter 2:9,  KJV)

This kind of abnormal, we can lay claim to.  If we follow Jesus, we belong!

Forever, we belong.

And, in spite of seasons that end and change, there will always be new beginnings.  We have the bright hope of life with our Creator that goes on forever.

Which brings me back to my opening thoughts.

On the day of the year when darkness holds sway for an equal amount of time with daylight, the Vernal Equinox, I went to see my doctor again.

I had prepared for the day.  I trust in a God who heals as well as saves.

I had left the abnormal in His hands.  I freely admit, I wanted it to be normal but I was ready to accept what came next either way.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t sit in the parking lot and let the tears flow as I communicated with the Lovely Lady afterward.

Normal.  He said I was normal.

I’m grateful for the changing seasons.  For darkness that turns to light.

Endings always lead to beginnings.  Always.  I don’t know why I continue to be surprised by it but yet, once again, I am.

And, I do know I’m still peculiar.  I hope you are, too.

 

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”
(Ephesians 2:1, NKJV)

“(Spring) is a natural resurrection, an experience of immortality.”
(H D Thoreau)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2023. All Rights Reserved.

Lesson From a Pear Tree

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I walked out my door a moment ago and stepped into a snowstorm. No—not an actual snowstorm, but the white petals did fill the air. Wind and rain are hurrying the demise of the spectacular festival of pear blossoms.

I strolled over to the ancient pear tree, towering more than 40 feet above me. It is still rife with ivory blossoms, but most of them will come to nothing. No pears, no edible fruit.

It’s not only the wind that will bring spring’s promise to naught.

The tree has outgrown the graft that made it productive in its early years. When I crane my neck to look toward the sky, its beauty is still evident, its size truly awesome, but the branches are barren of the sweet fruit it once offered to those of us on the ground below.

Lovely, but lacking.

Strange. There is a section, growing near the ground, where the blossoms look completely different. Different shape. Different hues.

The trunk is misshapen and gnarled, and the branches are slender here.

But, I know from experience that these blossoms will become buds which, in turn, will produce fruit.

Edible pears near the ground.

Reaching for the sky where it may be seen and admired by all who pass by, the huge branches spread, barren of anything but beauty.

Near the ground, where no one sees and none would remark, fruit comes.

I’d like to be grounded. And useful.

Beauty—true beauty—comes from obedient and humble performance. Gnarled and scarred, we serve.

Bloom where you’re planted.

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2023. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Looking Ahead—Looking Behind

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

It seems I’ve used up most of my available words in the last year writing about difficult things. As a consequence, for the last few months, my late-night writing sessions have been replaced by late-night reading sessions.

I want to believe the account of words I have to spend is being replenished in the process, but I’m not convinced.  Time will tell.

And perhaps, that explains why I am turning loose of a few of those precious words tonight.  Time is passing.  Passing at a frightening pace.

As I read late into the small hours of the morning recently, I glanced down at my wrist to see the time.  For several years the watch I’ve worn has been a so-called smartwatch, one that not only told me the exact time, but could relay messages from my phone, count the number of steps I have taken in a day, and even number the beats of my heart every minute of every day.

But not long ago I realized that I have tired of the over-abundance of personal information collected and shared by the device.  I found my old analog watch on the bedside dresser, replaced the broken leather band, and shook it vigorously a few times to wake it up. It is ticking away on my wrist even as I share my hoarded words here.

But, in that early morning session, I glanced down at my new/old watch and remembered another reason I like it so much.

The hands of the watch indicated that it was 1:45 AM.  Or, put another way, it was a quarter to two. In the morning. One might even say, it was only three-fourths of an hour past one.

My point is—the watch shows me more than just what the time is at this exact minute.  I can see where I came from on it.  I can also see where I am going.

The digital watch can only show me right now.  If that had been the watch on my wrist, the numbers would have indicated the exact time and nothing else.

A well-known fiction writer addressed this exact issue in one of his books I remember reading a number of years ago.

Digital clocks…provide the precise time to the nanosecond, but no greater context; an infinite succession of you-are-here arrows with nary a map.
(from Song of Albion, by Stephen R Lawhead)

It’s one of my problems with the information age in which we live.  Right now seems to be the only thing we’re concerned with.  Our watches show the exact time.  Right now. Our news reports are instant, telling us what is happening. Right now.  Many of our interactions with friends are by electronic means, informing each other of our present status.  Right now.

We live for today, eschewing the past, and barely considering the future.  Our sages tell us to forget the past because we’re not going there and to live for today because we may never arrive at any point in the future.

Carpe Diem!  Sieze the day!

Even those of us who follow Christ hear it from our teachers.  The Apostle Paul said the words, so they must be a life text to hold to.

“Forgetting those things that lie behind, I press on…”  (from Philippians 3:13,14)

In one way, they’re not wrong, but the apostle isn’t telling us to ignore the past as we look to the future.  He’s telling us to let go of the baggage, the things we cling to as proof of our right to be followers of Christ.  He doesn’t call the past garbage, just the deeds we mistakenly think have earned us a place here.

The past matters.  It has shaped who we are today.  Events—good and bad; interactions—kind and ugly; memories—delightful and horrendous; all have become a part of us.  The real us, who we are at our core.

If the past were of no consequence, our Creator would never have inspired men to write the Scriptures.  If the future were not for us to be concerned with, He would never have given us the hope of Heaven—would never have encouraged us to throw off the weights that impede our progress daily and to press on toward a certain goal.

Did I say earlier that I only glanced down at my watch in that early morning, not long ago?  I meant to say that was my intention.

When I became aware again, that quarter-hour in front of two o’clock had slipped past, the minute hand easing past the top mark on the face.

Time is like that; whether day or night, it flees. Many of the old-time clocks had the Latin motto inscribed on their faces.

Tempus fugit.

I’ll never catch it.  Never.

Still, a glance backward now and again gives me confidence to look to the future with hope.

And, strength to face today with purpose.

Press on.

 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1, NLT)

“Where did you go to, if I may ask?” said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along.
“To look ahead,” said he.
“And what brought you back in the nick of time?”
“Looking behind,” said he.
(from The Hobbit, by J. R .R. Tolkien)