Stories

There Was Even a Snake in the Garden

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

It was an almost perfect afternoon.  Almost.

We had wandered, the Lovely Lady and I, along the trail, exclaiming about this rock formation and those beautiful wildflowers as we went.  Everything was perfect—the sunny but cool weather, the scenery—even the best hiking companion I could ask for.

It couldn’t have been any better.  And then, we headed up the hill along the rushing creek and the falls came into sight.  It could be better.

Above those falls were more falls, with water tumbling from the higher rocks down into a pool shaped by years of the descending cascade.  We leaned against the boulders and felt the spray hitting our faces.

Perfection.  What beauty!

Later, as we trekked back down the hill, a side path diverged near the creek again and we followed along beside rapids rushing over a huge, barely submerged rock that was forty or fifty feet long.  The sound of the water was enchanting as we stepped down the natural limestone staircase to the water’s edge, sitting down just above the flow to rest. The hypnotic sound of tumbling water and songbirds surrounded us in the woods.

Cares were washed away with the rushing water; troubles nearly forgotten and stresses began fading. It was as if the world had disappeared, and paradise had taken its place.

It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?  Perhaps, it was.

“What’s that awful stench?”

The words grated, ripping away the mirage of paradise, quickly returning us to the world we thought had been left behind. There was a definite odor lurking in the atmosphere around us. It smelled a bit like a sewer, or perhaps, rotten food.

I sat where I was, hoping the euphoria from the previous few moments might return.  It didn’t.  The moment was gone, and my mind had no intention of regaining the peace it had known for that short time.

After a few more minutes, we stood and, climbing the limestone steps, headed on down the trail.  The folks who maintain the nature park had painstakingly installed markers along the way, labeling trees and natural habitat, describing the history of the place, and we took the time to read most of them.  One stood out, as we headed back toward our vehicle and the world of reality beyond this oasis.

“Sulfur water. When the flow of the creek diminishes, one may smell a slight smell like rotten eggs, which comes from the natural spring that also feeds the creek from underneath the limestone and shale formations.”

It was the answer to the question asked as we sat along the water’s edge, lost in the beauty around us.  The intruding stench was merely sulfur in the rushing water, itself a part of the natural environment.

If one explores the online comments about the nature park we were in that day, they will find a number of reviewers who dwell on the odor, as if it were one of the dominant features of the place.

It’s not.

The overwhelming beauty, the marvel of a Creator’s hand, the peaceful oasis mere moments away from one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States—those are the dominant features of the place.  The smell is nothing more than an appendix, a single imperfection on the periphery of a stunning object of art.

And yet, it is what many choose to remember—and proclaim publicly—as the major attribute of the entire experience.

Why is that?

Why do we choose to discount the overwhelming beauty of life as we focus and amplify the negative, insignificant as it may be?  We do it with places and things, forgetting the joy of visiting and touching and holding as we recall the times we were disappointed by them.

We do it with the people in our lives, as well.  A lifetime of love and service may be wiped away by one single action they have taken or a word they have spoken, as we follow the sad and timeworn practice of the world, canceling them without an iota of grace or forgiveness.

People, broken and flawed just as we ourselves are, tossed on the burn pile awaiting their just reward.  All because we can’t see past the fault to recognize the beauty and the need.

You know there was a snake in the first garden, don’t you?

The serpent was created by God, too.

Oh, I’m not going to argue any kind of doctrine about the devil here; I have no dogma to impress upon you.  Many before me have already done that.  It’s not my intent to convince you one way or another.

What I do know is that there was a fabulous garden, gifted by the Creator to His creatures, a place for them to explore and exclaim over, and to enjoy forever.  Compared to Eden, the nature park the Lovely Lady and I visited the other day was a desert wasteland.

And yet, the pair in the Garden of Eden focused their full attention on the snake.  All of God’s creation surrounded them, and they listened to the hissing snake blithering on about the one tree that wasn’t theirs to partake of.

We know how that story turned out, don’t we?

There are still snakes, and stenches, and steep climbs, and wide ravines here. We can focus on them if we want.

We can.

But look around at the glorious world He has given us to walk through!  And the lovely humans He has given us for companions along the road!

The Teacher said the words, not to draw our attention to the negative, but to lift our eyes to the joy and the spectacular opportunities He puts before us:

In this world you will have troubles.  But be full of joy and great gladness!  I have overcome the world!  (John 16:33 ~ my paraphrase)

We travel this foreign land beset with sorrows, but not overwhelmed by them. We are battered by fears, but they have no power to knock us to the ground.

Our Creator gives us songs in the darkest night.  He provides light for the path ahead and good company to cheer the heart.

Our old friend, the Apostle, reminds us to keep things in perspective as he draws a word picture of a scale, each side of the balance beam bearing a bowl filled with items. One side is incredibly light, the other overwhelmingly heavy.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory… (2 Corinthians 4:17 ~ NKJV)

Not that we ignore the suffering of those around us—not that we bottle up the feelings and reactions we ourselves have when those sufferings visit us.  We are to bear each other’s burdens, to weep with those who weep.  But we don’t let the things that trouble us control who we are and how we live.

Strength, and peace, and joy are ours.  For life.  While we are in this world.

He’s given us incredible blessings—unbelievable beauty—as we travel His way. Those are what He intends us to be attentive to.

I do have to wonder, though.  His Word tells us of a river that runs through that new garden He’s preparing for us.  Will there be sulfur water flowing into it, as well?

If there is, who would notice it anyway?

 

There are far, far better things that lie ahead than any we leave behind. (C.S. Lewis)

 

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  (Philippians 4:8 ~ NLT)

Joy Over One

~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments
image by jplenio on Pixabay

I think I saved a life last night. It may not seem like all that much when it’s written down in black and white, but I felt pretty good about it at the time.

Now that I think about it, it seemed like the night outside was a little brighter. Just a tiny bit.

Perhaps, I should just tell the story before I break my arm patting myself on the back. The red-headed lady who raised me used to worry about that. She said she did anyway. It could have been an exaggeration.

I don’t sleep as much at night as most folks I know. It’s a lifelong habit I’m not about to break now that I’ve entered what we once called the golden years. I’m not unhappy to have the quiet hours of the night to read and to think. Occasionally, I even put down a few rambling words to share with my friends.

Which brings me to last night. Not sleeping, at about 2:00 a.m., I wandered through the house, checking the doors and appliances one last time. Walking into the darkened family room, I was startled by a bright, momentary light shining up on the ceiling near the outside wall. I wasn’t sure what it could have come from, but I waited a few seconds to see if it reoccurred. It never did but, still curious, I found a light on my phone and aimed it at the spot.

My mind had, in the few seconds I stood waiting, settled on the light from a firefly, or lightning bug, as the probable cause, but I thought it should have reappeared somewhere in the vicinity again if that was the case. Still, it wasn’t much of a surprise when the light from the phone revealed a lightning bug as the culprit.

There at the conjunction of the ceiling and outside wall, the bug hung, swinging unnaturally just an inch below the ceiling. It didn’t take long to see that it had flown into a barely visible spider web and become ensnared.

Before things get out of hand, I should inform you that the Lovely Lady assures me it hasn’t been very long since the cobwebs were last displaced by her brush, but the tiny arachnids can be persistent, constructing new webs in a matter of minutes when the mood takes them.

Did I mention they were tiny? Indeed, I laughed when I first saw what was happening. The lightning bug was jiggling back and forth as it hung there, and right beside it was the web-building spider, hardly one-tenth the size of its captive, busily spinning more sticky silk as it sidled around the body of the comparatively gigantic-sized lightning bug.

I like lightning bugs better than I do spiders. Who doesn’t?

We—most of us—chased fireflies as children in the twilight hours of the summer evenings, catching them and tossing them at each other, perhaps keeping them captive in a mayonnaise jar to light up our bedrooms later that night. I still love looking out over the freshly mown fields at night and seeing their flickering bodies lighting up the June landscape, making me think it could as easily still be fifty years ago.

But it’s not fifty years ago. And I can no longer bear the thought of even that one little bug dying to feed the tiny spider on the ceiling.

Reaching up gently, I pulled the bug and the web, spider and all, down from the ceiling. The spider, not to be denied its trophy, dropped down a few inches on a strand of web and then, crawled up just as quickly toward the lightning bug, ready to begin weaving the web-prison around his body again.

I shook the belligerent little assailant to the floor, making sure the connecting web was broken so it couldn’t make another trip up to the lightning bug, and then I examined the poor victim.

Motionless, its head was bent down towards its thorax, pulled by the sticky, nearly invisible web that remained around it. It wasn’t moving so much as a single leg.

I was sure it was dead. In fact, I considered simply tossing it into the trash basket nearby.

Instead, I gently reached down with my fingertips and pulled at the sticky web, all the while seeing the unmoving legs and body lying in the palm of my hand. It was hopeless, but still, I pulled at the stubborn silk. Being careful not to pull a leg off as I worked, the task took longer than I anticipated, but it was probably not more than ten or fifteen seconds later when the lifeless body was free again.

Did I say it was hopeless? Lifeless?

I did, didn’t I?

We give up hope much too easily.

Where once there was light, we see darkness; where there was life, death. Even though we have experienced reprieves again and again ourselves, we give in so soon to dismay and dread.

The last of the web came away and the firefly instantly righted itself and started walking in my palm. Instantly!

Not dead, but alive!

I closed my fingers around it loosely and headed for the door (nobody wants a lightning bug flying in their house while they sleep!) to return him to his natural habitat. I stood on the concrete slab outside the back door and opened my hand, waiting to see what the little bug would do.

He got to the ends of my fingers but didn’t fly away. In my experience, they always fly when they reach the edge. Always.

Well, almost always.

This little fellow had had a bit of a shock. Death had him in its grip. The foregone conclusion had seemed inevitable. And now, life and freedom beckoned.

He needed a minute to clear his head. I would have, too.

I lowered my hand a bit and then, after raising it quickly, reversed the direction again. He took the hint, launching into the night air. A few feet out from where I stood, the light from the chemical reaction in his body showed clearly. Once—twice—I saw his light, and then he had joined the other late-night beacons in Dr. Weaver’s field, lighting up the night as they have for so many centuries going back to time immemorial.

Back from the dead.

Silly, isn’t it?  All this attention and emotion wasted on a little lightning bug. Still, my heart swelled a bit as I thought about the joy of seeing one who is as good as dead joining the multitude of the living again.

It reminds me of something…

It’ll come to me. Maybe to you, too.

But I will admit to one thought that dims my joy a bit. Just a bit.

I can’t get that tiny spider and its puny, thin web out of my mind. How is it that such a minuscule thing, armed with no weapon to speak of, can take down an enemy many times its size? And so effortlessly, too.

The preacher in me wants to expound.

The grace-covered sinner I know myself to be is certain there is no need.

Today is a day to rejoice!

Where there was death, life has vanquished it altogether. Darkness threatened, but the light has not been overwhelmed.

Life. Light.

Great joy.

 

 

“‘They cannot conquer for ever!’ said Frodo. And then suddenly the brief glimpse was gone. The Sun dipped and vanished, and as if at the shuttering of a lamp, black night fell.”
(from The Two Towers ~ J.R.R. Tolkien)

 

“And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”
(Luke 15:9-10 ~ NLT)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2021. All Rights Reserved.

Chocolate Fried Memories

~ 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)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2019. All Rights Reserved.