Turning Corners, Seeing Colors

May 14, 2024May 15, 2024 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I walk a lot these days.

By choice, I walk. Folks used to stop and offer me rides. Living in a small town makes it so that many who drive past know me, by sight if not by acquaintance. I laugh, telling them I’ve got two perfectly good vehicles sitting in my driveway, but would rather use my two perfectly good feet instead.

Usually, they look at me as if I’ve taken leave of my senses (they’re not far wrong) and then, laughing a little, accept my thanks and drive on. I am grateful for their kindness.

But, I’d rather walk when I can. This old body needs to move more, anyway.

And, I can see the colors better.

I suppose I could see them from the driver’s seat, but for some reason, the glass and metal of a vehicle seem more like barriers to me than like an invitation to a vista.

Outside works best for viewing outside.

It’s funny. I used to think the sky was blue, with white clouds and a yellow sun hanging above it all. Three colors.

Three.

It’s how I remember drawing every picture I produced as a child. Every one. Blue sky—white clouds—yellow sun. I might have thrown in a brown and green tree if I was feeling unusually painterly on that particular day.

So—five colors. In an entire landscape.

Five.

I see more than that when I walk now. A few more.

I saw the scene captured in the photo above on a recent walk. It was a spectacular sunset, observed almost by coincidence when I turned a corner. And, I stopped to take the pic, ruining my speed walking time on my smartphone’s app to do it. Somehow, that doesn’t bother me at all.

Later, my inquiring mind wondered, as I gazed at the photograph, how many colors were present there. In the sky above my head. In the ground beneath my feet. I was pretty sure it was more than five.

Information being readily available—at our fingertips, one might say—these days, I did a quick search online to see if it was possible to determine how many colors are visible.

I can’t vouch for the result, but one online app suggests there are 179,423 colors in the original photograph. That’s more than five.

I like seeing the colors. There were others on that walk. Before I turned that corner.

As I walked along the southern border of the field my walking trail curves around, I saw a lovely pink color approaching me.

The little girl’s hair was a beautiful pastel pink. Seven or eight years old, she pedaled by on her blue bicycle, smiling broadly as she sped past. I smiled broadly right back at her.

It wasn’t only the girl and her colors that made me smile. Even before she reached me on the trail, I heard the sound from her spokes. And the playing card.

When the little girl passed me, she wasn’t riding past a sixty-something-year-old man. She couldn’t have told you, but it was a little boy just her age she met on the trail that evening.

I can’t tell you how many times we did it. My mom would have had a better idea of the number of times she yelled at us for stealing her clothespins. The clothespins were to hold the cards to the bicycle frame just adjacent to the spinning wheel spokes. I think the little girl used scotch tape, but we used clothespins. Sometimes, Mom got them back. Sometimes.

Plup-plup-plup-plup-plup-plup-plup-plup-plup.

The faster we rode, the louder and more motor-like it became. We weren’t on bicycles. We were on a motorcycle, flying along the asphalt. For miles, the plup-plup-ing sounded in our ears.

Oh, the memories!

But, the little girl and her time machine streaked on down the fitness trail, leaving an old man in her wake. The sound became softer and softer until there was nothing but echoes of a lifetime ago in my ears.

I headed north toward my house and a waiting easy chair. But, still straining my ears for the fluttering of the playing card in the spokes, I turned one more corner—back toward the west—toward the empty field between—to see if I could catch a few more seconds of the lovely rhythm.

I didn’t. But, I did see the spectacular sunset you see above.

I turned the corner.

This afternoon, as I sat mulling over the chance meeting on the trail and the subsequent vista of a Creator’s handwork, I remembered that I had a book due at the library today. I knew the Lovely Lady had some to return as well, so I suggested we leave soon.

She, working on one of her crochet projects, replied, “Just let me turn this corner and I’ll be ready to go.”

The words took on a different meaning in my head as I waited. We sometimes use the phrase to mean a life change—a momentous event. Perhaps, even a life-saving change.

“She’s turned the corner and will be released from the hospital soon.”

“He turned a corner and is going a completely direction in life.”

Sometimes, it takes every bit of strength we can muster to turn those kinds of corners.

Frequently though, turning the corner takes nothing more than a simple ninety-degree change in direction. One moment, we’re headed up the same road we’ve been on forever (seemingly) and the next, the scenery has changed completely, looking nothing like the destination we envisioned when we left home.

I like surprises. Good ones, anyway.

I love the colors along the road. And, sometimes away from the beaten path.

Maybe it’s time to take the slow way home. Perhaps, we could even turn a corner we’ve never turned until today.

There are colors out there we’ve never seen before. I’m sure of it.

And, there might be some sounds we’ve been missing, even though we didn’t know it.

I wonder if we could turn some corners together. Slowly.

Are you coming with?

“Look, I am about to do something new.
Now it begins to happen! Do you not recognize it?
Yes, I will make a road in the wilderness
and paths in the wastelands.”
(Isaiah 43:19, NET)

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.”
(from The Road Less Traveled, by Robert Frost)

The Old Barn in Spring

March 26, 2023 ~ 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.

A Bridge to be Crossed. Again.

August 5, 2020 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 3 Comments

From my workbench in the back room of the music store, I heard her exclamation of dismay.

Just moments earlier, the Lovely Lady, knowing I had over-promised and was likely to underperform if I didn’t have some relief, had suggested that she would take care of any new business until I could complete the jobs due that afternoon. It was a good plan. My work was going well and it appeared deadlines might actually be met.

Then I heard her unhappy outburst.

She would be calling me anyway, so I headed for the front. The sight that met my eyes was, to a lover of fine musical instruments, a sad and disastrous horror.

The young man wasn’t smiling either, as he stood beside the broken and splintered guitar. But, I remembered a few months before, when I had installed an electrical pickup system in the aging acoustic Martin, giving him a new facet to its usefulness.

He had had a smile on his face as he carried the instrument out on that day. He had been sure the beautiful guitar, one he had acquired while still in high school, would be the only one he would ever need.

It took a single moment—just a few seconds of forgetfulness—to dash that belief forever.

An afternoon at work, good intentions, a momentary distraction, and the guitar was under the wheels of the huge truck. Completely destroyed.

Lifetime plans dashed. Instantly.

As the young man spoke to me, he gently touched the fragments of wood. I could see the pain in his face—could feel it in his voice. But, there was something else in his voice—indeed, something different written on his face. He had come in for a purpose, and it was not to commiserate over the fate of the beloved instrument.

Purpose! That was what I heard in his voice. Purpose and resolve.

He would not dwell on the past. He was ready to move on.

“Let me show you my new guitar!”

The instrument he drew out of the new case was a beauty to behold. A custom guitar, handmade by an artisan from a nearby town, it simply begged to be played. The young guitarist gave in and sat for a few moments to demonstrate the capabilities of his new love. The crisp, clean lines of the instrument were matched by the music that poured out of it.

The clarity and warmth of tone that emanated from the polished spruce and rosewood box were surprising and anticipated, all at once.

When he finished playing, we spoke for a few moments about how happy he was with the new tool he held in his hands. He means to play this guitar for a lifetime, as well.

There was more. He was ready to leave the old broken guitar in the past, but he wanted a favor from me.

“Is it possible that the pickup system from the Martin will fit in this one?”

It made sense. He had spent hard-earned dollars on that system—quite a few of them. We might just as well salvage it and keep it in use. It would do the job just fine.

He was simply being practical. But, then again, perhaps there was a little sentiment in the request.

The need to move forward was clear. The old guitar would never, never play another note. But, part of it might be incorporated into the new one. The old would aid the new to achieve the vision the young man had always had for his future.

It would be a bridge, of sorts, between the past and the future.

I could help him cross the bridge.

I anticipated seeing the smile on his face again, just as I had the last time he carried a guitar out of my shop.

The future awaits. Up ahead.

As I sat thinking about what I would write tonight, my thoughts were naturally drawn to bridges. It really is almost unavoidable. You see, I am surrounded by paintings of bridges in the room in which I sit. I have given in to the urge to write about them often before.

I have written of the past and the future, using a bridge as a metaphor for the place where we stand, gazing first behind, and then ahead. Looking back, we see the events of the past clearly. Looking forward, we can just make out an uncertain future.

I have insisted that I must cross boldly to the future, encouraging my readers to do the same. But, tonight I’m wondering.

What do we do when the things we must leave behind were what we loved most in life?

I know folks who have stood at the approach to the bridge for weeks, months, even years, never moving. Gazing back at what is, even now, lost in their past, they still see nothing across the bridge to coax them to set the first foot on the platform.

Like the Children of Israel in the desert, they receive the sustenance of their God who promises them a place far better than any they left behind, and yet they pine for the food they ate when they were slaves. (Numbers 11:4-6)

Too harsh?

I also have stood in cemeteries and looked at the piles of freshly-turned dirt, reluctant to turn my back. I’ve watched dreams disappear into the air, like the morning mist in sunlight.

The disappointments and tragedies pile up behind me, as they do for every human who has ever walked this earth.

We can cling to them, like so many splintered guitars, for everything we’re worth.

There will never—ever—be another note of music from that source. The voices of the past are forever mute—in this world, anyway.

The human spirit is, however, designed by its Creator to be resilient and nearly impossible to crush. Like my young guitar-playing friend, it hears the call from the future and must answer.

We’ve stood at the bridge for long enough, looking back. The past cannot be retrieved, but what we’ve learned in it may be incorporated into the future.

Our memories are woven—hopelessly intertwined—into the fabric of our lives; we will never lose them.

I like the young guitarist’s way of thinking.

True, there is great sadness in the past. There was great joy as well.

Both will be found again.

In front of us.

And one day—one glorious day—the last bridge will be before us. Nothing awaits on the other side, but great, great joy. No sadness. No pain.

Joy. Across the last bridge.

I’m still walking. Still feeling. Still trusting.

There will be sweet music again. Of that, I’m sure.

Sweet music.

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.
(Philippians 3:13-14 ~ MSG)

Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering.
(from The Music Man ~ Meredith Willson ~ American playwright ~ 1902-1984)

Chocolate Fried Memories

April 11, 2019 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

“Grandpa, these are perfect!”

They’re not. The little half-circle pies have imperfection written all over them, from the re-rolled pastry dough right down to the non-symmetrical pleats on the edges. The gooey chocolate filling is nothing more than cocoa, sugar, and butter—mixed in an indeterminate ratio.

Still, the young lady sitting beside me with a grin spread across her face isn’t wrong.

This is perfect.

It is.

The kids have been bugging the Lovely Lady and me for weeks.

“Are we ever going to have chocolate fried pies again?”

On the designated afternoon, they entered the house boisterously, every one of them anxious to help, either with mixing and rolling out dough, or filling and sealing up the little pockets. Their mama made sure the finished product was done to a golden brown.

Pie in hand, I sit at the table with my children and grandchildren, but my thoughts are far away—fifty-some years and eight hundred miles away, if you must know.

The smile on my face then might have been just as big as the one plastered there now. The setting was certainly different. The family of seven was crammed into a beat-up mobile home with barely room for three or four. There was no nice artwork on the walls, no beautiful dishes in a hutch, no antique secretary in the corner. But, there was family. And there was love.

And, anything with chocolate in it was bound to be good!

Eagerly, the five kids awaited the result of the last hour’s labor. Oh, it hadn’t been that much labor for them, but they had helped—a little.

Mom and Dad mixed and blended, rolled and folded, and the result was going to be every bit as spectacular as those my grandchildren experienced just the other day. We were never disappointed with the little half-round pies that landed on our Mel-mac plates. Fried pie-crust, perfectly browned (even if one or two did get a little overdone), filled with gooey, chocolaty filling.

“More, please!”

With the same words we shouted all those years ago, I become aware that another round of the little desserts is needed—yes, needed. One doesn’t normally think of sweets as necessary, but these small pieces of family history are as important as any ancient dish in the cupboard, or painting on the wall, could be.

It’s only flour and water mixed with shortening, and chocolate and sugar blended with butter. There is nothing to invoke the image of gourmet food here. Pennies were spent for each serving. Pennies. And yet, the value to me (and, I hope, to them) is more than that of any pricey restaurant I’ve ever been foolish enough to walk into.

Children need to know they’re part of the story. In the stories we tell and help them experience, they need to be able to connect the dots and know that the lines lead to them. The things we experienced as children, things our parents experienced, and their parents before them, need to be a part of their lives.

We don’t lecture them with the stories; we live them together—and then re-live them again.

Thirty years ago, I asked my father where the recipe was for the chocolate fried pies.

“Recipe? There is none. A little cocoa powder, a little more sugar. Maybe some butter to hold it together. I don’t know. Mix it together, tasting as you go. You’ll know when you get it right.”

Mix it together, tasting as you go. You'll know when you get it right. Share on X

We made them for our children, long since moved into adulthood. They too, asked for more, please.

I guess we got the recipe right.

Tell your children the stories. Make the recipes. Play catch. Hike. Fish. Go to the library. Take long rides down the country lanes. You know what you love to do with them.

Do it. With them.

And, as you go, tell them the stories. Sing the songs. Laugh. Cry. But, let them know they’re part of a story. Let them know they’re part of The Story.

Each one of us is part of this wonderful ongoing adventure. Don’t let them think otherwise. Don’t let that smart-phone in your pocket get in the way. Don’t believe that a made-up story on a screen or in a printed book is more important than the story they, and you, are part of.

The folks at the church where the Lovely Lady and I fellowship asked me a few weeks ago if I could speak one recent Sunday morning. As I prepared, thinking about how our lives and stories are intertwined, I realized something. The folks back in Bible times didn’t have to be reminded they were part of the story. They grew up with the stories. They could read the genealogies and point to their great-grandparents, to their aunts and uncles, and know they were part of the story. The dots were already connected.

Still, the way it happens today, many centuries removed from those days, is much the same. Moses it was who reminded them with these words:

Teach my words to your children, when you sit at home, when you walk down the street. Talk about them when you go to bed at night, and then again, when you get up in the morning. (Deuteronomy 11:19)

Tell the stories. Illustrate them. Act them out. Sing them. Our children deserve our best efforts. Boring facts and meaningless figures won’t cut it.

What’s that?

Where’s the recipe?

There is none. A pinch of humor added to some history, held together with a lot of love. Or, is it a pinch of history added to some love, held together with a lot of humor? I don’t know. Mix it together, tasting as you go.

You’ll know when you get it right.

The eyes light up, the smile spreads, and the voices all ask for—well, you know what they ask for, don’t you?

More please.

Family history. Faith’s journey. It’s all part of the story.

Connecting the dots. And, eating chocolate fried pies while we do it.

Who knew making memories would taste so good?

This is perfect!

And did they tell you stories ’bout the saints of old
Stories about their faith
They say stories like that make a boy grow bold
Stories like that make a man walk straight

And I really may just grow up
And be like you someday.
(from Boy Like Me, Man Like You ~ Rich Mullins/David Strasser ~ lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Capitol Christian Music Group)

Maybe Tomorrow

September 7, 2018September 7, 2018 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 3 Comments

I thought today would be the day.

Today should have been the day. I’ve put it off far too long.

Yes. Today. I got out the saw. I was already dressed appropriately, having pulled on work clothes as I rolled out of bed this morning.

It wouldn’t be a quick job; that didn’t really matter. I would take off a limb here, another one there. Slow and steady wins the race. That’s what the red-headed lady who raised me would have said.

If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s slow. Steady? Not so much. Still, today was the day.

I extended the pole-saw up far enough to lop off a limb that overhung the fence. Not large enough to damage it when it fell, but enough to see progress had been made.

Thunk!

The branch from the old apple tree smacked the ground harder than I anticipated. This was really happening, wasn’t it? I reached up for another. As I reached, my mind reached back.

Thunk!

I leaned the long pole-saw against the five-foot-tall welded-wire fence. That was all I could do. I needed to sit down. Soon. I wasn’t sure I could even manage the strength to pull the limbs out to the brush pile, next to the little cul-de-sac street in front of the old house.

I got them out there, but the weight on my chest just wouldn’t go away.

I went inside and sat down, angry at myself. This was stupid. It should have been a simple job. Cut down the old shrunken and split apple tree. How difficult could it be?

History has weight. It does. It comes with an onus, an obligation.

I’ve just never felt it quite that heavy before. Oh, living in this world for over sixty years has taught me the lesson a little. But, the last few years are schooling me in that particular chapter more than I ever wanted.

I thought I was ready. As much as anything, that old tree signifies my memories of a family whose life has been tied up in this little patch of land and this old house from its first days. The Lovely Lady grew up playing near it and others, now long cut down. For more than half a century, the changing seasons have brought forth desserts and side-dishes worth remembering from the tree.

But, the tree has reached the end of its life. I’ve written about it here before—the twisting of the storm winds that opened the huge split, now held up by a two-by-four and a couple of plumber’s straps—and the shearing off of the largest part of the tree this last spring as another weather front blew through.

We would gather one last crop, having one last season to enjoy the applesauce and an apple pie or two—perhaps even a big pan of apple crisp drowned in heavy whipping cream. Then the tree, having lived a full life, would come down to be replaced by new ones planted in and near its footprint.

The last crop never came, the little green apples that promised so expectantly last spring disappearing before ever one came to the table. Barren. The tree is done. It will have to come down.

But, the unkept promise of one more crop rankles. Unfinished business. What if—what if we tried to keep it alive just one more cycle, one more time through the process the Creator programmed into its DNA?

Tomorrow.

I need more time. The weight of that final act is too heavy for me today.

Maybe next week. Or next year.

It’s silly, isn’t it? A tree. It’s only a tree.

The heart is so foolish. And, so fickle.

The weight of the past seems a very real thing, slowing us down, keeping us hoping against hope, even convincing us that tomorrow will work better than today.

It won’t.

The apostle (my namesake) stood before the Roman governor and told him his future if he didn’t turn around. Felix listened and, with the weight of his situation on him, told Paul he would consider it at a more convenient time. (Acts 24:25)

There will be no more convenient time.

Today.

That’s what we have.

Today.

In my many years as confessor to quite a number of folks (for some reason, the counter at our music store seemed a comfortable place for the rite, with both stranger and friend, young and old participating), I can’t count the number of people who wanted yesterday back.

From the man who told me on the day of his grandmother’s funeral of refusing to return one last phone call to her, to the boy who needed another shot at demonstrating his love for an absent girlfriend, they all wanted to live that particular today over again.

Today has an expiration date. It’s today.

Today has an expiration date. It's today. Share on X

The opportunities forfeited—the doorways passed by—all come back with a history and a weight all their own.

You see, we make history with every action and every inaction, every word spoken and every one left unsaid.

History has weight. Somehow, time seems to make it heavier.

It’s time to lighten our loads.

Jesus promised a lighter burden if we’d come to Him. The offer still stands. (Matthew 11:28-29)

The weight of our history need not overwhelm nor cripple us.

The weight of our history need not overwhelm nor cripple us. Come. Rest. Share on X

We’ve all got enough apple trees to grapple with in our lives without adding to that weight.

Come.

Rest.

Do it today. Today.

There’ll be apple pie again.

There will.

Shall we never get rid of this Past? . . . It lies upon the Present like a giant’s dead body.
(from The House of the Seven Gables ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne ~ American author ~ 1804-1864)

Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge,
Take it to the Lord in Prayer.
(from What a Friend We Have in Jesus ~ Lyrics by Joseph Scriven ~ Public Domain)

The Storyteller

February 17, 2017February 17, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

So I says to him—I says—that’ll never go through this door.

My grandfather died the year I graduated from high school, but still, I hear his voice, telling another of his stories. Always—always, they were punctuated with spaces.

They were spaces in which he caught his breath.

When he walked from the front porch to the kitchen, he always stopped at the desk behind his easy chair. Every time. Leaning with his big hands on the edge of the desktop, he breathed deep, his powerful chest muscles expelling the bad air and drawing in good.

I felt the tell-tale tightening in my chest earlier today, a sign that my own bronchial issues may soon overtake me again. I couldn’t help but think of the old man.

Experience tells me that, even should I succumb to the malady completely, I will breathe freely again very soon. But, these moments remind me of folks who’ve gone before—people I have loved and who have loved me.

They remind me of other things, as well.

My grandfather, he of the interrupted sentences, was a storyteller. He loved a good story. More than that, he loved being surrounded by people who listened to the stories he told. The gaps for breathing, at first an annoyance to both the teller and the listener, soon became room for thought and reason for suspense.

A good storyteller uses the tools with which he is provided.

Grandpa was a good storyteller. Health impediment or not, he was going to tell his stories.

I’m a storyteller too. You might say, it’s in my blood. Kind of like the lung issues. From my grandfather to my son, the males in my family have experienced similar problems of varying degrees. Without a say in the inheritance, we have each passed down the frailty to the succeeding generation.

May I talk about the storytelling and passing things down for a moment? I promise to be nearly succinct. The reader will have to be the judge of whether the time is well spent.

Did you know our Creator commanded us to be storytellers? And, He expected us to pass the love of telling stories down through the generations? His instructions—oddly enough, passed through another storyteller—were clear.

Parents tell your children. Tell them in your home, as you’re hiking on a trail, and when you’re in the shopping centers. Through all the ages, tell them. Give them reason to believe and to trust in a God who provides and protects. (Deuteronomy 11:18-20)

The testimony of previous generations is a bridge over which we cross the raging floods of cultural deception and shifting doctrine. If we fail to provide those bridges for our children, our progeny will be washed away in the roiling currents and howling rapids.

Tell the stories! Use words that are accurate and attractive. Put them to music, rhyme the syllables, and give them rhythm. Paint them on a canvas, or carve them in stone.

Tell the stories!

The Lovely Lady—my favorite walking companion—and I wandered along an abandoned roadbed just a few days hence. We had a goal in mind, a century-old bridge, now abandoned, but still standing. It has not carried traffic for a number of years.

A monument to the past, the framework stands. There is even a roadway across, but a few steps onto it and one soon realizes that it will never support the weight of a vehicle again.

A monument—nothing more.

Bridges are meant to be more than monuments. Properly maintained and kept, they smoothly move traffic from the place left behind to the destination. Abandoned, they serve no purpose, but rust and rot into the landscape, forcing the traveler to choose a different route or be carried away in the flood.

I will build bridges.

With my last breath, I will tell the stories.

With my last breath, I will tell the stories. Share on X

As my lovely companion and I wandered, almost sadly, away from the beautiful old span, I realized that my faulty lungs might make the half-mile trek back to the road difficult and wondered about the wisdom of making the trip.

I needn’t have worried. Companions are made to help each other on the road.

We don’t walk the road alone—don’t build the bridges alone—don’t cross them alone.

Surrounded by a great cloud of storytellers, we press on.

To our last breath.

Tell the Story.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit!
(Hebrews 12:1,2 ~ The Message)

For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.
(from A Horse and His Boy ~ C.S. Lewis ~ English author ~ 1898-1963)

Thick and Thin

November 10, 2016November 10, 2016 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The sheaf is growing thin.

Thin.

Thirty-nine years ago, it was a mammoth binder filled with pages—one crisp, white leaf for every day which would pass in my chosen profession. There was not yet a mark on any one of them; the story could only be written second by second, minute by minute.

The minutes turned into hours, weeks, months, and now years. At first, even the minutes moved by like syrup on the coldest February morning. And now, at the end, they fly like sand through the fingers of a child at the seashore

Page after page has been filled—lines with their scrawled script, margins with scribbled abbreviations. Even the edges are covered with notes, reminders now of appointments never made, but still kept.

Funny. Such a historical document should be conserved for the future, a textbook of success and failure, methods to be passed on to generations not yet even contemplated. It has not been.

The pages lie at my feet in tatters. Each page—completed—has merely been torn from the binder and dropped wearily to the floor at the end of the days.

There are mornings when I stoop down and scan a scrap of the paper underfoot. Memory springs to mind and a smile might cross my face, itself a little more lined and aged than when the binder was first opened.

Frequently, a customer stirs through the debris and reminds me of a memory they have shared, as well. My customers are friends, not income streams, and the memories are mostly sweet. Mostly.

Bittersweet, these days.

Well?

The sheaf is growing thin.

The crisp, white leaves gripped in my fist are precious and few now. I am loath to fill them and let them drop to the worn carpet beneath my shoes.

Today was a day for the scraps of paper to be read. As if the stress of a national election and its surprising outcome were not enough for one twenty-four hour period, the queue of old friends waiting their turn to reminisce and then to embellish the scraps of years past wound through my door from before opening time to well after the sun dropped behind the western horizon.

Each brought a gift, the gift of listening and speaking. It is the way of friendship.

Iron sharpens iron, sometimes painfully, often by polishing gently. (Proverbs 27:17)

Iron sharpens iron, sometimes painfully, often by polishing gently. Share on X

I have been the recipient of such gifts many times over the years. Grateful is too insignificant a word to describe what I feel.

I glance at the scraps of paper they have each left behind, scraps bearing their names and experiences, and I remember that I am a rich man. How could I not be—with a life full of such amazing people?

Yet, I spoke with one friend today of my unhappiness with how thin the sheaf of papers is now. He reminded me (gently) that God is still leading into the future.

God is still leading into the future. Share on X

I said earlier it was my chosen profession, but it was never I who chose it. The path was chosen for me—each step of my young life leading me to it and then through it, until now, as I near old age, I find myself stepping away from it at last.

I could never, in my wildest childhood dreams, have planned out such a journey, but He did. Every step.

The days left in this little music store are flying. There are not many more pages yet to be filled here.

I want them to be filled with words such as I heard today. I want them to be filled with people whose faces I see in my memories tonight.

And, I think as I consider the thin sheaf of papers yet to be written in my business—I wonder how thick that other sheaf is?

The book was so thick on the day we entered this world. Crisp and white, each page awaiting the record that has now been written, it had an adequate supply to last our whole lives through.

It is thinner than when we began. The opportunities for achievements to be recorded, events to be heralded, dwindle everyday.

Sometimes, I pick up the scraps from those pages, too. I’ve shared some few of those memories with you. The ones I’m willing to bring to the light of day again.

Others of the scraps will never be seen or read by anyone else, except by Him. He reads every one of them. The thought makes me cringe, but not because I fear any punishment. No, I cringe because, as any child with his Father, I never want to disappoint.

And, I have. Again and again, I have disappointed.

Those pages are filled, never to be written on again. My Father’s disappointment is past, the sins and missteps erased by His astounding grace.

Still, there are more blank pages. How many? I don’t know.

Perhaps, the sheaf is growing thin. Possibly, it still contains years worth of crisp, white leaves to be filled with the record of tasks fulfilled, and a legacy left for many who will follow.

Either way, He guides my steps.

He always has.

Through thick, and now, through thin…

He knew how to lead then.

He knows how to lead now.

Be still my soul.

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8 ~ NASB)

Be still my soul, thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
(from Be Still My Soul ~ Katharina von Schlegel ~ German poet ~ 1697-1768)

Holding Loosely

August 23, 2016August 23, 2016 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

Go, bid the hero who has run
Thro’ fields of death to gather fame,
Go, bid him lay his laurels down,
And all his well-earn’d praise disclaim.
(from The Captive Ribband ~ Robert Burns ~Scottish poet ~ 1759-1796)

Late one recent night, fallen prey to a short-lived spasm of conscience brought on by too much time spent in front of one screen or another, I took up a volume of Robert Burns’ poetry and determined to wade through it. Or, at least a portion of it.

My resolve—along with my guilty conscience—was in the final stages of relenting when I came across the jewel which contains the passage quoted above. I had slogged through too many lines of the bewildering Scots dialect, but it took only a line or two for me to grasp the poet’s meaning here.

Mr. Burns speaks of a single ribbon he has saved from the woman he loved, a ribbon he prizes as much as love itself. Thus the comparison to a hero’s fame and acclaim. He will never surrender it.

It is a familiar concept.

Some men can struggle through a lifetime and never be acclaimed a hero or even have their fabled fifteen minutes of fame. But, many people, given just one such opportunity, will hold tight to their proof of superiority for the rest of their lives.

I have to admit, I don’t know many old war heroes. I do know a fair number of old musicians. Young ones, too.

You wouldn’t believe the stories I hear.

I played with .

My band opened for .

I wrote music for .

Fill in the blanks. Big names. Huge stars. Crowds cheering and screaming for more. All in the past.

All of it, in the past.

A memory only, except for those who have mementos. Photographs, recordings (vinyl and otherwise), signed napkins, all are saved and clutched tightly as if they are more precious than gold.

And I, listening to the tale, may be accorded a quick glance at the talisman, as if a pilgrim at a holy shrine.

I find myself both fascinated and saddened by the stories—and the souvenirs. The joy—the pride—is all in the past, with none left for the future. Success achieved, aspiration is shed like a suit of clothes, never to be worn again.

Consider the words of the humbug Wizard to the Tin Woodman:

They are called phil. . .er. . .phil. . .er. . .er. . .good-deed-doers, and their hearts are no bigger than yours, but they have one thing you haven’t got! A testimonial!
(The Wizard of Oz ~ L Frank Baum ~ American author ~ 1856-1919)

Without diminishing the importance of heroic acts—and they are not to be passed over lightly—I want to suggest that if we must look only behind us to see the deeds worth celebrating, we are a sad and hopeless lot.

The Apostle who loved to write long letters (he shares more than just a name with me) had a mountain of mementos and testimonials. A mountain. (Philippians 3)

He called the mountain garbage. No. He called it. . .well, I won’t write out the word here, but in the dialect of his day, it was a coarse word for dung.

Some folks have used that passage of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi to prove that God has no use for our good works. It’s not what He was saying.

In the journey to our real home, the things we do will not earn us safe passage. They won’t earn us entrance into Heaven. There is only one thing that guarantees eternity with God. Only one.

We rely on what Jesus has done for us, having no confidence whatsoever in our flesh. (verse 3) Salvation is complete, without one iota of effort on our part.

The high calling is just that, a call to come up higher. Share on X

Still, we are called to better things than what is in our past. The high calling is just that, a call to come up higher.

The goal still lies ahead.

The trophies and accolades of the past are nothing to what lies ahead.

If. . .

We must finish the course with integrity and with courage if we aim to win the prize.

If we must grip honor in a clenched fist to retain it, we have not yet earned it. Share on X

If we must grip honor in a clenched fist to retain it, we have not yet earned it.

Let the past go. Nothing in it is anything compared to the trophies and testimonials that are to come.

Nothing.

Better things lie ahead.

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.
(The Old Rugged Cross ~ George Bennard)

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
(From Collected Letters ~ C.S. Lewis)

Another Bridge

March 29, 2016August 5, 2020 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

From my workbench in the back room of the music store, I heard her exclamation of dismay.

Just moments earlier, the Lovely Lady, knowing I had over-promised and was likely to underperform if I didn’t have some relief, had suggested that she would take care of any new business until I could complete the jobs due this afternoon. It was a good plan. My work was going well and it appeared that deadlines might actually be met.

Then I heard her unhappy outburst.

She would be calling me anyway, so I headed for the front. The sight that met my eyes was, to a lover of fine musical instruments, a sad and disastrous horror.

It took a single moment—just a few seconds of forgetfulness—to dash that belief forever.

An afternoon at work, good intentions, a momentary distraction, and the guitar was under the wheels of the huge truck. Completely destroyed.

Lifetime plans dashed. Instantly.

Purpose! That was what I heard in his voice. Purpose and resolve.

He would not dwell on the past. He was ready to move on.

“Let me show you my new guitar!”

The clarity and warmth of tone that emanated from the polished spruce and rosewood box were surprising and expected, all at once.

When he finished playing, we spoke for a few moments about how happy he was with the new tool he held in his hands. He means to play this guitar for a lifetime, as well.

But, there was more. He is ready to leave the old broken guitar in the past, but he wanted a favor from me.

“Is it possible that the pickup system from the Martin will fit in this one?”

It made sense. He had spent hard-earned dollars on that system—quite a few of them. We might just as well salvage it and keep it in use. It would do the job just fine.

He was simply being practical. But, then again, perhaps there was a little sentiment in the request.

It would be a bridge, of sorts, between the past and the future.

I would help him cross the bridge.

I anticipated seeing the smile on his face again, just as I had the last time he carried a guitar out of my shop.

The future awaits.

I have insisted that I must cross boldly to the future, encouraging my readers to do the same. But, tonight I’m wondering.

What do we do when the things we must leave behind were what we loved most in life?

Too harsh?

I also have stood in cemeteries and looked at the pile of freshly-turned dirt, reluctant to turn my back. I’ve watched dreams disappear into the air, like the morning mist in sunlight.

The disappointments and tragedies pile up behind me, as they do for every human who has ever walked this earth.

We can cling to them, like so many splintered guitars, for everything we’re worth.

There will never—ever—be another note of music from that source. The voices of the past are forever mute—in this world, anyway.

The human spirit is, however, designed by its Creator to be resilient and nearly impossible to crush. Like my young guitar-playing friend, it hears the call from the future and must answer.

We’ve stood at the bridge for long enough, looking back. The past cannot be retrieved, but what we’ve learned in it may be incorporated into the future.

Our memories are woven—hopelessly intertwined—into the fabric of our lives; we will never lose them.

I like the young guitarist’s way of thinking.

True, there is great sadness in the past. There was great joy as well.

Both will be found again.

In front of us.

And one day—one glorious day—the last bridge will be before us. Nothing awaits on the other side, but great, great joy. No sadness. No pain.

Joy. Across the last bridge.

I’m still walking. Still feeling. Still trusting.

There will be sweet music again. Of that, I’m sure.

Sweet music.

Face Toward Home

December 17, 2015December 17, 2015 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Home.

I’ve been thinking a lot about home the last few days. Well—it is normal for that to happen this time of year. Christmas memories do intrude on normal life.

For most folks, they do.

I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t really experience Christmas as a child. We took a different path as a family and didn’t celebrate the holiday. Perhaps I’ll spend some time on that subject again—perhaps not. All it means to this discussion is that I have no childhood Christmas memories calling me back home.

Still, my mind drifts back again.

I can’t help it. Events and family decisions are conspiring to draw me back to the place I still call home, in spite of nearly forty years of being away. And, in the midst of planning for one last trip home—one last chance to say goodbye—my head is alive with memories.

They are memories of a home filled with love and music. They are also memories of the same home filled with sibling rivalry and loud arguments, lasting late into the night, about every subject you could imagine. A lifetime ago in that home, my brothers, sister, and I developed from awkward, dependent little brats into strong, responsible adults (for the most part).

Denim jeans worn through at the knees and patched by a red-headed lady—muttering and shaking her head all the while—play a part in the memories. So too, do wool sweaters crocheted by the same red-headed lady—this time, smiling and humming at her work.

The events that shaped the humans we are today are still in our heads, just waiting to be captured by the fickle net of memory and brought to the surface at any moment.

They’re not all happy memories. Then again, for me, they’re not mostly sad ones either.

I’ll take one last trip home.

Closure. The long chapter will be finished.

Somehow though, during this Christmas season, interlaced with the weaving of denim and wool memories of that long-ago home has been the sheer and silky fabric of a home I have not yet been to.

I’ve never been there, but lately it feels more like home than any place to which I’ve ever given that name. Perhaps, it’s because the red-headed lady who raised me has moved there within the last year.

I don’t think it’s only that. I don’t think it’s even mostly that.

The realization hit me just this week, as I joked with a customer in my business. I haven’t been feeling well for a day or two and my plaintive reply to his casual query about my general well-being led him to say the words.

“Well, it’s better than the alternative.”

I started to nod in agreement, but suddenly it occurred to me.

No. It’s not.

The realization was like an electric shock. I don’t want to stay here one second past time to go home. Not an instant.

Home is the place we are aiming for. It’s the ultimate goal of our labor and living here.

I told him so. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I wonder why?

My mind wanders a bit further afield. Suddenly, I’m thinking about Him. You know who I mean. The Baby—the One whose birth we’ll celebrate in a few days. He left home.

It was a big deal. Home was better. Really better.

Still, He left home. For us. To teach us. To touch us. To save us.

To take us home with Him—so we could be with His Father.

Funny. I suddenly remember why I mostly want to go home.

To be with my Father.

Yes, the red-headed lady who raised me will be there. She’ll be there, along with many others I want to see again. A lot.

But, I want to be with my Father.

In a week or so, I’ll turn my face toward my old home. Even then, My face will be toward my real home.

It’s out there still. Just up ahead.

I can almost see the lights from here.

Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.(Hebrews 11:16 ~ NIV)

Strengthen us to go on in loving service of all thy children. Thus shall we have communion with thee, and, in thee, with our beloved ones. Thus shall we come to know within ourselves that there is no death and that only a veil divides, thin as gossamer.
(from a prayer by George MacLeod ~ Scottish soldier/clergyman ~ 1895-1991)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

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