gifts

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

“How many times a day do you sweep your kitchen floor?”

The question was asked, ostensibly as a query in an informal poll, by my funny friend on her Facebook page the other day.  And, by funny, I mean funny ha-ha, not funny weird.  Well, maybe funny weird a little, but mostly funny ha-ha.

The question triggered a thought (again) that has been bothering me for many years.   Maybe bothering isn’t the right word.  I think perhaps the correct term would be frustrating.  Because it certainly is.  Frustrating, I mean.

Why is it that some jobs are never done?  Even when you’ve done them?

Those of my readers who do housework will understand perfectly.  Laundry, dishes, housecleaning, meal preparation–the list is endless.  And repetitious beyond belief.

My own list, though somewhat less imposing, has the same challenge.  Tasks done today must be done again tomorrow.  Or next week.  Or next year.  It matters not.  They must be done again.

And again.

The lawn needs to be mowed?  Yep–I’ll have to do it again next week.  Car needs to be washed?  It’ll rain tomorrow and I’ll have to do it again.  Time to paint the eaves?  What, again?  I just did that ten years ago!

The problem with life is that it’s so daily.

I want to be able to assign the quote to a certain person, but I think it has been spoken aloud so often by now that Anonymous will have to do.  Still, the truth is, we all face the repetition of daily life–today, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that.

I hate the dailies.  Really.  What’s the point?  They’ll just have to be done again.

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

We call it drudgery.  Difficult work to do.  Work that must be done repeatedly.  Day after day.

I was amused as I searched for the definition of drudgery.  I noticed a thesaurus listing which equated the word with an idiom Christians use frequently–at least in our discussions of fallen man:

By the sweat of one’s brow.

And the Creator said to His creation, “In drudgery shall you earn the food you will eat, until you return to the dust from which you came.”

Quite the depressing subject, no?  Do you get the idea that I’m not just talking about all the physical, menial tasks I’ve mentioned above? 

I’m not.

thestruggleI want to talk for a minute (maybe a little more than that) about what I’m doing right now. 

At this moment, I’m sitting in a dimly lit room with soft music playing, coffee cup at hand.  No, I’m not all that comfy.  The hard wood chair has a pad where it makes contact with my sitting-down parts.  No place else.  There is no plush rug to sink my feet into.  In fact, my feet have to stay corralled under the wooden desk, sharing the already narrow space with a computer tower.

I do this most nights.  I’m not playing games, not browsing the Interwebs, nor even answering correspondence from friends.

I come and sit here because I have to.  For hours, almost without moving, at times.

I have to.

Writing isn’t something I fell in love with; it isn’t a path to fame and fortune.  It’s not even an activity I chose to do.  Well, in a way, it is. 

I choose to be obedient to the assignment.

I know there are many writers who will disagree with me.  I know of several who believe that every word they write is given to them from God.  That’s not the gift I’ve been given.

The gift I have been given is a drive to write, a need to communicate God’s love through the printed words.  The gift came from God.  I have to write.

You want to know my problem with that? 

The words don’t just fall from heaven onto my desk. 

The nights I have plopped down in my hard wooden desk chair and had an entire essay flow like honey from my fingers, I can count on those sticky fingers.

It’s a struggle.  A fight.  On this emotional battlefield, I cry and I scream, all the while wondering if I’ll ever write another lucid sentence.  From many of those battles, I’ve crept silently home, defeated.  I lie in my bed, sleeplessly gazing at the ceiling and promising myself that in the morning I’ll break the news to the Lovely Lady that I’m finished. Washed up.

To my shame, from some of those battles, I have simply turned to my keyboard and slapped out enough letters and symbols to weave together the words which make up another empty and useless essay.  My victims will read it and wonder what the crazy man was getting at this time.  It’s still defeat.

The result is the same as before: no sleep, no rest in my spirit, an overwhelming sense of disappointment at my failure to achieve the purpose.

Funny.  My restless night notwithstanding, the next nights nearly always find me back here.  The hard chair is almost welcoming by now, the soft light calming, the beautiful music helping to keep the resolve in my soul firm and unyielding.  Regardless of the defeats that have come on this battlefield, the gift demands my attendance.

Why do writers write? 

You might as well ask why my friend, Ms. Barb, bakes rolls for her friends.  Or, question why, in my town, Pastor Wayne builds ramps in front of the houses of the lame and the aged.  Inquire about what drove my friends in Houston to adopt a child with lifelong needs, issues which will demand their attention from now until they no longer have the physical or mental strength to fulfill them.

God gives good gifts.  The Teacher said it.  If your child asks for food will you give him/her a rock?  How much more–there can be no question–how much more then, will your Heavenly Father give good gifts to His children?

Good gifts.

There are days when it feels more like a noose around the neck. 

Ask my friends in Houston.  Ask Ms. Barb–okay, don’t ask her.  She’ll never admit it.  Still, I wonder if sometimes, just sometimes, it doesn’t take all she has inside to muster up the energy.

Night after night, I struggle with my stewardship of this gift.  It’s not a word we use much, is it?  Steward.  The word implies servitude–the administration of things which will never completely belong to us. 

It is what we are if we follow Him.  Servants.  Stewards.

By choice.The_Gift

We give back the gift to the Giver.  Only, we have taken the time and made the effort to make the gift, which was appropriate and necessary for us, priceless and beautiful for the King of all Creation.

Drudgery?  Sweat of our brow?  Yes, in a way.  We labor at it, without doubt.

I struggle with tenses and punctuation, fight with malapropisms, wrestling the sentences into order, night after night.  And still, the next morning, I await the emails from the Lovely Lady bearing the bad news.  A comma placed incorrectly, fuzzy antecedents, abused hyphens–all are grist for her mill, and I get a steady diet of them.

It’s hard work. 

No–these words don’t proceed straight from the mouth and heart of God.  They are filtered through this bumbling and inefficient scribe.  There will always be room for improvement. 

In anticipation of this essay, I shared a couple of thoughts with my online friends earlier this week.  It’s only drudgery if there is no purpose, I suggested to them. 

I have a purpose. 

So does Ms. Barb.  And Pastor Wayne.  And my friends in Houston.  So does every single one of us who has also been given one or more of those good gifts.  I suspect that includes most of those brave souls who have read thus far in this lengthy piece.

So.  What happens with the gift now? 

Often for a lifetime, and then again, sometimes only for a season, He gives good gifts.  And, when He sees our faithfulness in using that gift, He usually gives bigger gifts.

Bigger jobs, you ask?

Yeah, they’re the same thing.

Life is so daily. 

He made the days, too.  Gifts as well.  Seven in a week.  Three hundred sixty-five of them in a year’s time.

So we’d have more chances to get better at being faithful stewards.

I’m just wondering how I’m going to find time to write all the thank-you notes for the gifts–what with washing the car, sweeping the floor, painting the trim, and…

 

 

 

 

 

Your talent is God’s gift to you.  What you do with it is your gift back to God.
(Leo Buscaglia ~ American author/motivational speaker ~ 1924-1998)

 

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
(1 Corinthians 15:58 ~ NIV)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Picking My Brain

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“Say! You’re a great teacher! Thanks for helping me understand all that!”

I had never seen the slender young man before, but we had spent the last hour in my music store discussing a myriad of subjects. Banjos, violins, vintage guitars–you name it, if there was one of them in the store, we talked about it.

The twenty-something fellow was like a sponge, soaking up every bit of information I laid out for him. After we had talked about the construction of the century-old violin he brought in for an appraisal, we also discussed its accessories and value. By the time I had exhausted my knowledge of the violin family, he was profuse in his praise.

“How can you know so much about this?”

A little embarrassed, I gently brushed aside the compliment, and he wandered through the store for awhile, stopping to admire a vintage acoustic guitar on display. Before we finished our conversation about that subject, we had widened the field of the discussion to include several other old instruments hanging in the place. Again, he was amazed.

brainpicking“Really! I’ve never had anyone who could tell me so much about musical instruments.”

He continued to pump me about the various instruments, asking questions that made me reach back into my memory of the basics and methodology of each one. I must have passed his test, because at the end of the hour, he concluded his comments with the above statement about teaching.

I’m laughing.

I tried teaching one time. 

Tried. Failed. 

Really.

I didn’t have the patience. Seriously, when I told a student something a single time at a lesson, I expected them to retain that information as long as they were studying the subject. Why else would I have told them?

I taught you this last week! Why do I need to tell you again?

Now you’re laughing. I’m not a teacher. The nice young man is wrong.

May I tell you what I do know?

What I do know is that not one idea in my brain belongs to me. Not one.

What I do know is that there is no knowledge which I retain about any subject that I acquired without the assistance of someone else. None.

Everything I have has been given me. Everything. Some may wish to argue the point, but I contend that none of us has acquired anything of ourselves. Oh, I don’t mean that we haven’t worked to attain it, but we cannot even claim the credit for the strength to do that work, much less the intellect to understand the subject in which we claim expertise.

Captain of my own ship? What a fraud! 

Many who have affirmed that status find, to their chagrin, that it is a complete falsehood. Physical strength may be gone in a moment’s time. So too, the intellect is as likely to be snatched away as it is to remain at our beck and call throughout our lives.

I must share my meager store of information because it was never mine to hoard. It was never mine to dole out. It has never been mine to sell to the highest bidder.

I may not be able to teach skillfully, but I can talk endlessly. That will come as no surprise to those who know me well, nor to quite a few folks who know me hardly at all, but nonetheless have endured my oral ramblings at length.

The Lovely Lady and I sneaked out to eat at a fast food restaurant tonight. The girl at the cash register called out the total for our meals and then added a phrase I’ve never heard before. I don’t even think it’s a real thing.

“With your Wise Person Discount, your total will be eleven dollars and seventy-nine cents.”

Huh?  Wise Person Discount?  Are you kidding me?  Just because I’m getting old?

I took the discount. I’m grateful for the compliment. 

Still, I’m not sure she really understands the concept of wisdom. Wrinkles and gray hair aren’t equivalent to wisdom. Some of the most foolish folks I know are much older than I. That said, it is to be hoped that the passage of years has brought with it a tiny bit, perhaps just an iota, of wisdom. But that too will be a gift, unearned, unmerited.

I still believe that every good thing comes from the Giver of all good gifts.

Freely we have received; freely we must give.

It’s not much, but I’m going to keep dispensing the knowledge contained in my head. Perhaps a bit of wisdom will be thrown in here and there.

Hey. It’s possible.

Come see me and pick my brain. We’ll see.

 

 

 

 

“True wisdom exists in knowing that you know nothing.”
(Socrates ~ Classical Greek philosopher ~ ca. 469 BC-399 BC)

 

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”
(James 1:5 ~ NIV)

 

 

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

A Fake Holiday Observed—Once Again

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure that today, of all days, I should wax eloquent regarding this date set aside for lovers, but I’m drawing a blank.  I went back and read my post from Valentine’s Day a couple of years ago to see if I could glean any ideas for yet another treatise on our annual trek through the sentimental terrain of the day.

Nothing. 

I had no idea of what to talk about the year before that, either.  You see, for all my introspection, all my analytic brooding, I am still no good at the mushy stuff.

I am, after all, a mere man; not given to romantic gestures, save occasionally.  I am also a cynic, believing this date is nothing more than a once relatively obscure holy day, dedicated to an equally obscure saint named Valentine.

Truth be told, there were two men by that name designated as saints by the early Catholic Church, neither of which originally had any connection whatsoever to romantic lore or history.  It is only in the last century that stories have been fabricated to turn the day into one with connotations of romantic love.

The cynic in me believes the hype to be a conspiracy by the commercial concerns which stand to gain financially from the widespread celebration of the fake holiday.

And, do we spend money on the day!

I’m thinking of one Valentine’s Day, many years ago, when a young man, nervous and anxious to impress his young fiancee (she was only seventeen that year), went out and spent every dime he could scrape up to buy a piece of jewelry for her.  Even though it meant there would be no romantic dinner (not even a Number 3 Burger with Tots at the local Sonic), he spent the extra couple of dollars it took to have her initial engraved on the gold-plated stickpin.

It wasn’t even real gold!  Regardless, the gift was eminently successful.  The young lady was duly impressed, or at least appeared to be, and the fact that there was no romantic candlelit dinner went by without comment.

After that, the stickpin could be seen frequently, pinned through the lapel of her jacket or on a scarf worn around her neck, to the lasting enjoyment of both the beautiful young lady and the bumbling young man.

I stole the stickpin out of the young lady’s jewelry box tonight so I could photograph it for you.  She was not happy.  It’s not a thing of beauty anymore.  The shaft is slightly bent (from a too-thick jacket lapel), the edges are showing wear (gold-plated, not solid, you remember), and the clutch is not even the original one.

She doesn’t wear it much, since such trinkets have fallen out of fashion.  But, the Lovely Lady is not through with it yet.  The cheap little piece of costume jewelry has value to her still.  Though no sane person would ever offer anything for it, she would not part with it for money.

I promised to return it before I go to bed, later.  It’s a promise she will hold me to.

This not-so-young man is gratified to realize that the years have not tarnished the feelings a bit.  There have been many months of February which have passed since that one so many years ago.  Most of them have passed with little notice.

And, what of flowers, chocolates, or romantic meals at favorite restaurants?  Those do come frequently, but mostly on other days of the year.  The cynical resistance to the commercialism of the day is shared by both of us.

Yet, not a day goes by that each doesn’t verbally remind the other of our love for them.  We show it in untold ways, too.  As always, I get the better end of the deal.  She doesn’t complain and even insists that she is content with her part of the bargain.  I believe her, although I still can’t understand it.

You know, if you’ve read many of these posts, that I am unashamedly in love with that same young lady who received the cheap little stickpin all those many years ago.

It’s the way marriage is intended to be.

The world around us tells us differently.  Even the celebration of romantic love on just one special day a year is at odds with the reality of what true love is.

Although we know deep down that love is a way of life, and not an emotion, we continue to live for ourselves, selfishly insisting on our own way and indulging in our own pleasure.

By our selfishness, we deny that love is exactly what God says it is.  What we believe love to be is so far from the truth of genuine love that it resembles the original not at all.

Whew!  For not having anything to say on the subject, I’ve dived in headfirst, haven’t I?

Okay.  Discourse done, I’ll step down from the soapbox once more.

Besides, I’ve got to get that stickpin back in the jewelry box before morning…

Let love increase!

 

 

 

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.  It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful.  It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.
(I Corinthians 13: 4-8 ~ NET)
Let the wife make the husband glad to come home and let him make her sorry to see him leave.
(Martin Luther~German theologian and church reformer~1483-1586)

 
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2013. All Rights Reserved.