I know it’s not the right way to begin an article.  NCIS Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs would have said it’s a sign of weakness.

But I want to apologize anyway.

I’m sorry for the photo that accompanies these words.  I know the subject matter is triggering for some.  Childhood memories.  Terrifying stories told by uncaring siblings.  Nightmares that can’t be erased from the mind.

I hope the reader will give me a chance to explain.

My grandchildren came to help me in my yard a few days ago.  I never raked the leaves from my lawn last fall—never cleaned up the mess from the dying of the year.  They knew I was embarrassed by my failure.  So they came to help me make it better.

Several hours, they labored with me that day.  The monumental stack of black bags full of oak, maple, and pear leaves they left behind bore testament to their hard work.  The monumental back-ache I had that afternoon also bore testament to mine.

At some point during the early afternoon, one of my grandsons noticed the snake.  It wasn’t huge, just an ordinary garter snake.  The harmless reptile was stretched out near a hollow in the ground left when our lilac bush died a couple of years back.

My grandson, brave young man that he is, picked the snake up by its tail and, swinging it back and forth, carried it to the back fence and let it go into the wooded area behind our house.

As I examined the hollow in the ground, I noticed movement near a hole in the center.  Our activities had shifted all the leaves that had been providing cover for the den.  It soon became clear to us that it was home to more than just the one snake.

The two curious creatures in the photo were wondering what happened to their roof, and perhaps, to their brother (or mother, or sister).  We helped them relocate over the next couple of hours, as well.

Later that evening, when I showed the photo to the Lovely Lady, she drew in her breath sharply.  She then suggested that it might be best if I kept the photo to myself.

A wise husband follows the advice of his spouse in such matters.  I’ve never considered myself especially wise.

I had a reason to share the photo.  In my mind, it was a good reason.

Knowing that I have my own terrors about snakes and that I am frequently awakened by dreams (not the good kind) about them, I wondered about the things we give power to.

I wanted to drive home the idea that it is our own foolishness that leads us to give fear a place in our everyday lives.  I had a number of examples to add to the snakes.  Storms.  Wildfires.  Financial disasters.  War.  There are any number of things of which we are afraid.

Things we give power over us.

And, along with the photo, I wanted to write words of condemnation, words of derision.  A put-down of the foolishness of heeding the utterings from the terror merchants among us—the doomcasting news media, the fearmongering meteorologists, the pulpit-pounding fire-and-brimstone preachers.

I repent.

I stood in a church building this morning and wept.  It wasn’t the first time I had done that in the last day or two.  But, it was merely a line of a song that pushed me over the edge today.

“Our call to war, to love the captive soul,
But to rage against the captor.”
(from “O Church Arise”, by Townend/Getty)

I wonder if anyone else sees it.  And then, I think that probably I’m the only one in my tribe who couldn’t see it before.

And that’s okay.  I see it now.

Jesus came to free the captives and to heal the sick.  He came to set the oppressed free from their oppression.  He clearly declared that was who He was.

I have been comfortable showing them their captivity and their oppression and then have blamed them for their situation.

Why do we rage against the captives—against the oppressed? 

Everywhere I look today, I see it.  I hear it.

I do it.

I said that worship service wasn’t the only time I had cried recently.  I had a conversation with a friend who was frightened by an approaching weather system last week.

My friend’s admission of fear was the only trigger I needed to set me off.  I began to rant about the folks who are responsible for building up that fear and about folks who hide in their fraidy holes at the mention of a storm coming.

My rant was cut short as my friend’s eyes were lifted up to mine. 

Words fail.

I made my way home, seeing through tears.

Do you know what it’s like to be alone?  To be impaired?  To feel helpless in the face of danger?  To not know if anyone will remember you as they evacuate?

God, make my heart soft.  Where it is hard as adamant, make it as tender as Yours.

I’m not a newbie at this following Jesus thing.  It’s been a lifetime.  And still, I repent.  And will need to again. 

But, His declaration to the folks in His hometown—the prophetic words from Isaiah, the ones that nearly got him thrown off a cliff by his neighbors—is still true.

For me, it’s true. 

And for anyone who comes to Him.

He still sets the captives free.

That Gibbs fellow was wrong, he of television fame; it is not a sign of weakness to apologize.  It’s a sign of strength—of resolve. 

And I’m still sorry for the snakes. 

I think the Lovely Lady will let it slide.  This time.

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
    that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
    and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
(Luke 4:18-19, NLT [from Isaiah 61:1-2])

 

“I’m unfinished. I’m unfixed. And the reality is that’s where God meets me, is in the mess of my life, in the unfixedness, in the brokenness. I thought he did the opposite, he got rid of all that stuff. But if you read the Bible, if you look at it at all, constantly he was showing up in people’s lives at the worst possible time of their life.”  (Mike Yaconelli)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2025. All Rights Reserved.