Before the Storm

January 23, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I wore gloves to walk up to the university campus this afternoon. I’d be lying if I said they didn’t help. I’d also be lying if I said my hands felt good.

The wind from the north is piercing. And it promises worse to come. I would know that—even if the wannabe celebrity weather people weren’t shouting the news of the coming winter storm at the top of the Internet’s voice.

The volume of wind was shocking to the face and lungs as I walked toward my goal, struggling more for breath, perhaps, than most. It cut right through my thin gloves and coat with bone-chilling directness, leaving pain and immobility in its wake.

I didn’t think I’d play the piano this afternoon. My fingers were stiff, and a couple of the joints hurt long after I wrapped them around the bowl of warm soup prepared for my lunch.

But my mind has been working on a theme today—a theme of the Father’s love and provision. And, there’s a tune I know…

So I sat at the piano and worked my way—painfully at first—through the notes and chords. It’s a piece I’ve heard most of my life. I played this particular arrangement when I was twelve or thirteen years old, not knowing there were words that went with the tune.

You might know it as Londonderry Air. Or, as Danny Boy. Perhaps (if you were a member of a school band), you know it as Irish Tune from County Derry.

But me—I’m from a church-going background, the son of a (then) lay pastor. We learned church songs. Hymns. Maybe a new song or two from Bill Gaither, or a Southern Gospel Group.

I heard the first words that I knew went with this tune as a teenager. Dottie Rambo wrote them.

“Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise,
For it was grace that bought my liberty.
I do not know just how He came to love me so.
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.

I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary
To view the cross where Jesus died for me.
How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul!
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.” *

When my oldest brother and I played an instrumental version of Dottie’s song in a piano/organ duet in a morning worship service, I couldn’t understand why one man approached me after the service and wanted to know why we were playing a secular song like Danny Boy in church. In retrospect, I agree it is a bit difficult to make out what lyrics are intended to be communicated when just an old grand piano and a Hammond organ are playing the tune and harmony.

It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I learned the lyrics to Danny Boy, and even later, that I understood the words were from a father to his son, going off to war with little hope of his returning.

“Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling.
It’s you, it’s you must go, and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy I love you so.”

If, while you listen to the little tune I’ve recorded, you want to consider either set of lyrics in your head, I have no objection. Truth be told, if you’re thinking about the lyrics, you won’t be listening closely to my stumbling, halting rendition. And that’s okay with me.

Either way, you’ll be thinking of the heart of a father who loves his child so very much and waits with open arms for his or her return.

It’s the heart of a Father who watches and protects us against that day when, all dangers passed and all journeys over, He’ll welcome us into His presence.

He watches and protects against even monster winter storms. And yes, against the occasional twinge of arthritic joints.

And we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

“So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20, NIV)

Resistance is Futile

January 13, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t intend to post another piano video on Youtube today. I didn’t.

But my friend, Bob, posted a verse from Revelation 22, and I had to comment on it. Had to.

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” (Revelation 22:1)

Water is life.

And mercy. And grace. Especially grace.

That would have been the end of it. Except, my friend, Lisa, from New Zealand (where they are enjoying summer while I run my heater), posted her beautiful poem, and I had to comment on it as well. Had to.
_____________________

BAPTISM

Live each breath as prayer,
carrying the mind,
a paper boat in the heart.

Do not be rushed,
but like the stream
flow steady and clear.

The stream,
with its pools for settling,
for reflecting Heaven’s gaze.

Live as though nothing worries,
is absorbed,
discharged in the current.

Walk in the flow
but sit in presence,
not hurrying,

But allowing the water of life,
with its ebbs and flow,
to minister in refreshment,

To collect
the full weight of things,
to sustain and lead.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
January 2026
____________________

That was it. I was done commenting. And reading. I sat down at the old grand piano, intent on playing. For the calm. For the emotional release. I picked up one of my mother-in-law’s books—the ones she published over 30 years ago, to give folks like me (and her) songs to play that wouldn’t hurt the fingers quite as much.

The first song I turned to was a lovely arrangement of an old, old hymn. About water. And peace. And grace.

I threw up my hands and played the song. Again and again. With tears flowing. And once, as I laughed out loud.

I can’t do the dear lady’s arrangement justice. She would have had a few things to say about my fingering. And the wrong notes. And the counting.

But, in my head, I heard her playing it with her crippled hands and then realized that she doesn’t need these simple arrangements anymore. Freed from their diseased prisons, her fingers flow over the keys (if they have pianos in heaven, and I hope they do) like the water these verses sing of.

Living water flows from the seat where God rules in love and grace, justice and mercy.

Perfect peace. Perfect rest.

Soak it in.

“Like a river, glorious
  Is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious
  In its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth
  Fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth
  Deeper all the way.

Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blest;
Finding, as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest.”

LIKE A RIVER GLORIOUS—1874
Music by James Mountain, Words by Frances Ridley Havergal
Piano arrangement: Viola Whitmore

Going On

January 2, 2026January 2, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

It’s only the end of the first day of this new year, and already I’m a failure.

Only this week—albeit last year—I told a young relative that I had selected a word for the new year, which I hoped to make a key part of who I can be as the days go by.

The word is “listen”.

I told the Lovely Lady about my word for the year, and she laughed, wondering how that would work, knowing I am losing my hearing. My sister-in-law, listening nearby, reminded me of their late mother’s onetime quip to another, older family member, that he needed, not a hearing aid, but a listening aid. Apparently, I need both.

I still maintain my resolve to learn to listen. To friends. To family members. To folks I don’t know.

To God.

Instead of responding to what I think people are saying after hearing a few of their words, I want to allow them to share their thoughts in full, as I attempt to understand completely what they are telling me.

And yet, before the year was an hour old, I had ignored that resolve, blasting through a conversation with two young ladies I love with astonishing disregard for their contribution to our discussion.

I have apologized to both of them. I don’t feel a lot better about it.

Perhaps though, I should modify my first statement to say, not that I am a failure, but that already I have failed.

It seems it takes more than just failing to become a failure. It takes not trying again. Rooting around in the failure, deciding that one can do no better than the failed attempt.

Surprisingly enough, I have also decided to adopt an entire phrase, the origin of which I was unaware when I spoke it aloud to the Lovely Lady on that very night. (She was tempting me with sugary desserts, you see—and I resisted.)

Begin as you mean to go on.

If you had asked me, I would have told you that Nora Batty, a character in an old English comedy show, The Last of the Summer Wine, had uttered the words originally when talking about training a new husband. It turns out, the phrase wasn’t hers.

I used the tools I have at hand today and searched for the origin. I was surprised when Google informed me that a great preacher and evangelist from the 19th century was known to have used it first in a book he wrote in 1886.

Here’s the full quote from Charles Haddon Spurgeon in All of Grace: “Begin as you mean to go on, and go on as you began, and let the Lord be all in all to you.”

I think I like it better now than I did before.

Even after my initial failure in the new year.

There was no room for grace in the shortened version. Not even room for assistance from above.

Begin—I did that part.

Go on—I didn’t do that part.

Failure. Full stop.

Ah. But I have decided now to go on as I began. That is grace. Let’s see how that works out.

I’m nearly certain I will fail to go on as long as I need to. No matter. God is indeed all in all to me. If I let him be.

Still grace. Forever, grace.

I have quoted the words before—words from Philippians, chapter 1: “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6, NLT)

You see, He goes on as He began. Always.

Without fail.

I am counting on Him to dust me off and send me on along the road of this new year. And the next one. And the next one.

The lady in the television show, Nora Batty, wasn’t all that great with her husband-training. I’d like to be better at my task.

I think I have better help than she did.

You could walk along with me on the road, too.

He’ll keep us all the way home—even if we’ve made a late start of it.

Let’s begin. And go on.

Failures and all.

“Indeed Christian, take heart in this revelation! The outcomes of your labors were never in your hands, but in God’s. You have but one task: to be faithful.”
(from A Liturgy for Those Fearing Failure, in Every Moment Holy Volume 1, by Douglas McKelvey, Rabbit Room publishers)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Month: January 2026

Before the Storm

Resistance is Futile

Going On