Month: November 2024

The Day Before Thanksgiving

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment
Image by Priscilla Eu Preez

The day before Thanksgiving.

That doesn’t sound right to me.  I wonder if it bothers anyone else.

The Lovely Lady tells me I don’t need to overthink things.  She knows I will anyway.  I come by it honestly.  It’s in the genes, you might say.

My father is the one I blame for this trait.  Logic was his domain.  Every year on what most of us would call his birthday, he’d inform us he was celebrating the anniversary of his birthday.  Clearly, you can’t literally revisit your birthday—it being in the dim, distant past.

Then, he would go even further and explain that, in reality, one was beginning the next year in the sequence of years.  If you turned thirty, that was the day you entered your thirty-first year—having completed the thirtieth already.  Then, if he was really feeling curmudgeonly, he’d remind you that technically you needed to add nine months to the age anyway since the gestation period was arguably a season of your life.

I’d like to tell you I’m not quite as pedantic as that, but in my overthinking brain, it bothers me a bit to think that only one day in the year should be recognized as Thanksgiving.

And, now that I let my eyes drift to the words I’ve written above, I realize I’ve departed so far from my original intention for this little essay that I may have already lost the plot.  It’s a common problem for me.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes.  The day before Thanksgiving.

Somehow, I think it’s no mistake that a close family member is scheduled to have a consultation with her surgeon on this day to discuss the timetable for removal of a mass in her abdomen.

I was to go to the appointment with her until my doctor added an appointment at another hospital for an MRI for me.  Yes.  On the day before Thanksgiving.  He says we need confirmation that I actually have a brain in my head.  There’s never been any convincing proof of the fact, to my knowledge.

And, the other family member who stepped in to take the family member to her doctor’s visit is already dealing with bad news for others in his own circle.

But, give it one more day and then we’re going to be thankful.  We’ll gather the rest of the family around the loaded table and get in the spirit of things—being thankful. 

Just not today. 

Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.

Is the day before the official holiday going to be hard?  It does seem likely.  Biopsy reports and anticipation of surgery and, possibly a chemo regimen are hard.  Hard.

Lying with one’s head in a cage listening to the clicks, the whirs, and the bangs of the machine surrounding you can’t be comfortable.  It might be considered hard, too.

I talked with at least three friends today who told me of family members dealing with the “hard”.  Many I know (and you do, too) are anticipating a holiday with empty chairs at the table—chairs that had someone they love sitting in them a year ago—three years ago—a decade ago.  It doesn’t matter. 

Grief is hard.

None of what I write here is going to make the hard any easier.  None of these words are intended to diminish, and certainly, not to make light of the pain.

I know this about being thankful:  It allows us to see a way through the hard to the future.  But, when all we can see is the hard and the pain, we can’t see past it to anything but the now.

The hard now.  Today.

But, today is not all there is.  It’s not.

His mercies are new every morning.  Every one of them.

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NLT)

I’ve never been quite sure I like these words penned by the apostle for whom I am named.  But, they give me hope.  They tell me I belong.

To Him.  The One who has planned good things for me.  And for you.  Things to help us, not to hurt us.

I will live in that hope—will walk in that hope.

It’s not the day before Thanksgiving.

It is a day of thanksgiving.  Another one. 

Like yesterday was.  And, like tomorrow will be.

I’m giving thanks. 

Today.

I hope you will, too.

 

“And now let the weak say ‘I am strong’;
Let the poor say ‘I am rich’,
Because of what the Lord has done for us.
Give thanks.”
(from Give Thanks, by Henry Smith)

“I will thank the Lord with all my heart!
I will tell about all your amazing deeds.
I will be happy and rejoice in you.
I will sing praises to you, O Most High.”
(Psalm 9: 1-2, NET)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.

In The Morning

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment
personal image

 

“Good morning.  Again.”

The pink lady smiled sympathetically as I walked past her station in the hospital’s lobby to the padded seat in the waiting area.  I’ve been there for several early morning sojourns in the last couple of weeks.

There are more to come.

I’ve mentioned that I don’t do early mornings before, haven’t I?  These haven’t been voluntary, but necessary.  I don’t volunteer for early mornings.

Oh, wait.  I did, didn’t I?  Volunteer.

And, I’ll do it again.

Tomorrow is another one.  An early morning.  That’s why this is going to be short. 

But, I thought you needed to know—you who do this all the time.  I’m talking to you who volunteer for the early mornings—and the long afternoons—and the interminably long nights.

It matters; what you do matters.  You matter.

A friend sent a note this morning, as I sat in one of those waiting rooms.  She wanted me to know that I was a blessing to the lady for whom I was biding my time.

I mentioned to her that I was simply doing what was in front of me to do.  Then I wondered if that’s what being faithful is about.

I’m still mulling that one over.  I may think about it in the waiting room of another facility tomorrow morning.

But, my friend who sent the note about being a blessing was the one who actually blessed me by writing the words.

So, I’m just passing it on. 

You know who you are.  In your homes—the hospitals—the nursing homes—the prisons—the hospices. 

You are a blessing.

You are.

I just thought you should know.

 

“Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.
    Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.”
(Psalm 5:3, NLT)

“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”
(1 Corinthians 4:2, NIV)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.

Just a Little Proud

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment
image by Nick Russill on Unsplash

“That trim board is just a little proud.  We’ll have to hit it with the sandpaper to get it flush before we finish it.”

My brother-in-law was installing the new bookshelves in our living room.  As he set them in place, he noticed the errant piece and was unhappy to see it.

I didn’t care about the piece of wood; but being a certifiable word nerd, I did want to know about the terminology he had used to describe it.

“Proud?”

Patiently, as he sanded the offending wood to match the surrounding cabinet, he explained that the word described the position of the wood in relationship to the rest of the bookshelf.

“It just needs to be flush with the rest of the edge.  If we leave it standing out like that, you’ll catch on it every time you walk past and could actually damage the rest of the bookcase.”

With a flourish, he finished sanding.  I looked to get a glimpse of this proud board, but it was now impossible to see what he had been working on.

Proud no more, the trim piece blended in with the entire unit.

Integrity.  All the individual pieces working together achieved beauty and functionality, so our books were safe and protected.

But, I didn’t intend to write about books or even shelves today.  I want to talk about something else that happened just this week.

It seems to me I should make this clear from the get-go; I won’t move your piano, even if you’re desperate to have it done.

I’m just saying…

Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, perhaps we can go ahead with the story that inspired this little essay.  It does, in fact, involve moving a piano.  And, I don’t do that anymore—right?

The Lovely Lady’s daughter and son-in-law (okay—mine, too) have moved into a larger house, one that will accommodate a grand piano.  They were able to locate a good instrument at a fair price and asked if I could come along, “…purely in a consulting capacity, you understand?”  (Because I don’t move pianos.)

We gathered up the equipment and, hooking the little trailer up behind my pickup truck, drove to the outskirts of town to collect the piano.  There was plenty of help, with muscles galore—enough of them that I wouldn’t need to lift even a corner of the heavy instrument.

After disassembling the piano enough to stand it on edge, we put it on a dolly and rolled it outside and into the trailer we brought for the task.  We covered it well with pads and strapped it against the side of the trailer.

We should have been ready to load the sundry pieces into the truck and drive away to deliver the piano to its new domicile.  We weren’t.

I looked at it sitting there against the side of the trailer and thought that something was off.  Gripping the side of the instrument, I pushed and pulled, first away and then back toward the trailer’s side.  As I had suspected, it moved an excessive amount.

I wasn’t at all sure the weight of the piano wouldn’t make it tip over as we traveled down the road.  Tipping over isn’t good for a piano.  Not at all.

I discussed the problem with the moving crew and we agreed that more than half of the piano’s body was sitting above the side of the trailer.

It was just a little proud.

We traded ideas about how to remedy the problem.  I was even ready to attach another strap to the opposite side of the trailer to counterbalance the weight.

Then my son-in-law had the bright idea.

“Why don’t we just take it off the dolly and make it sit down lower in the trailer?”

The man is a genius.

We tipped the piano up a bit and removed the moving dolly, letting the board under the piano sit back down on the trailer’s floor.  Reattaching the straps, I shook the instrument again.

Rock solid.  There would be no tipping.

The reader might be excused for thinking someone uttered the words, “That’s not going anywhere,” but no one did.  I thought it but resisted saying it.

That piano had been proud.  Sitting up where it was exposed to the vagaries of gravity and my erratic driving, it was a prime candidate for a fall.

But, there were no calamities in the piano move.

Because we cut it down to size.  Okay—we didn’t actually use a saw blade; we just lowered its center of gravity.  For safety and efficiency.

Is it the right time for this reminder?

“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!“
(1 Corinthians 10:12, NIV)

It strikes me that standing proud has never been the way our Creator intended for us to approach life.  While our culture differs dramatically, telling us to stand tall, to be proud, and to make sure we’re seen and honored above our peers, it seems clear that we were never designed to operate apart from the support of others.

A friend I was talking with this morning said it this way:

“We want to work from the top down.  God actually works from the bottom up.”

His creation shows the principle again and again.  A strong foundation supports the structure that rises from it.  Take away the foundation—stone, roots, or terra firma—and the structure is headed for a rapid unscheduled disassembly (to borrow a term from today’s vernacular).

The Word of God describes pride as sinful, in addition to its pitfalls.  In some ways, it seems the original sin of mankind was bound up in pride—contempt for obedience, along with a desire to show independence, driving the act.  It is certain that pride drove Lucifer’s rebellion and casting down from heaven.

And somehow, ages later, every one of us is just a little proud.  Or, more than just a little.

Proud.

But, God’s plans for us are for our benefit and to build us up.  Together. 

In the big picture, humility builds all of us up taller and stronger than pride.

I have seen the result of pianos that were allowed to stand tall in their conveyance.  The last one I saw was scattered across the farmer’s field that abutted the curve in the highway. 

It couldn’t have been a proud moment.  Despite any pride the owner might have felt as they loaded that piano. 

Maybe it’s time to get our feet on the ground again.

He gives grace to the humble.  (James 4:6)

And the sandpaper He uses on the proud doesn’t always feel that nice. 

I’ve learned that from experience.  And I’m not too proud to admit it.

Grace is better.

 

“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”  (Ecclesiastes 4:12, NLT)

“Do you wish to rise?  Begin by descending.  You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds?  Lay first the foundation of humility.”
(from Confessions by Augustine of Hippo)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.

 

One of These Things is Doing Its Own Thing; A Note to Myself

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment
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“People don’t think like I do.”

Tuesday morning in the coffee shop. I used to sit by myself and click away at the keyboard, collecting letters into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and… well, you get the idea.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to sit with a few men and “help them out” with their discussion.  I declined, sitting by myself again to write but, thinking better of it, moved over to help them out.  (I wasn’t really helping, but it was nice to think of it like that for a few seconds, anyway.)

The opening words above were what I was greeted with as I sat down with them again on this Tuesday morning. Our conversation over the next hour and a half ranged from football to politics and from parenting to couples therapy, with a good bit of Scripture mixed in, but the first words stuck with me.

“People don’t think like I do.”

Today being a national election day, I can’t quibble with the sentiment.

They don’t think like I do.  And, I’m going to say something argumentative.

It’s perfectly okay.

Being raised in a pretty straight-laced Christian home, much of my adult life has been one eye-opening realization after another that people don’t believe everything I believe.  I once thought I needed to convince all of them.

Every. Single. One.

I don’t.  Need to, that is.

I won’t.  Succeed if I try, that is.

Today I read the words below, written by a Christian author I follow on social media.  They seem important to me.  Especially the part about the knowledge of the holy.

“Praying.  Not for a particular result, but for a knowledge of the holy.  This I know; my hope tomorrow will be just as unflinching as it is today.  Because I know where my Hope is found.”
(Michele Cushatt)

Life is too short to go to battle about non-essentials.  But, we do it.  Day after day, we do it.

There is a photo of my neighborhood with this little essay.  It’s part of this note to myself to help me remember the important things.

His important things.

The beauty of His creation surrounding us reminds me to love God.  With everything I’ve got in me.

Love God.

The houses remind me of the neighbors who live there.  To be loved like I love myself.

Love people.

My area of ministry.  Assigned by Jesus, Himself.

It won’t change because of differences in religious beliefs.  Or election results.

I apologize for talking to myself today.  You see, I’m just not sure you think like I do.

But, I love you.  I do.

Mostly, because He showed us how it’s done.

 

“The tax on being different is massive.”
(Vivienne Ming – American neuroscientist)

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”  (1 John 4:7-8, NLT)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.