She took my glasses.  “It’s going to be about forty-five minutes, Mr. Phillips,” came the warning.  I was prepared for a delay, so I took my seat in the waiting room.  I used to spend this time reading the already-worn magazines which are always hanging around reception areas, but today as I bided my time, I pulled out my Swiss-Army phone to check my email and the auction I was running on Ebay.    That didn’t take long (slow day for both emails and the auction), so the Solitaire game, always a welcome time-waster when no other alternatives are available, popped up on the screen. 

I was in the optometrist’s office to pick up my new lenses, probably long past due, given the changes in my eyesight over the last couple of years.  Since I’m too cheap to buy new frames if there is any wear left in the current pair, they were cutting the new lenses to fit the old ones.  I could hear the machine back there, grinding or cutting something.  After awhile, the optometrist, an old acquaintance of mine, came out and sat in the chair next to me just to talk.  We gabbed about children, and old times.  Doc was an umpire years ago when my son played Little League, giving opportunity to all kinds of jokes about glasses and bad calls in the ball games.  We just sat and remembered “way back when” and then he was gone again to check on the progress.

“Come on back, Paul,” he called out, directing me to a seat in the fitting room.  “She’s just going to get them cleaned and then we’ll make sure they’re okay.”  I sat where I was directed (again) and waited…and waited…and waited.  Finally, he walked into the room and told me what the delay was about this time.  It seems that when the lab makes the type of bifocals I wear, they have to mark them to make sure the optometrist aligns them correctly when cutting them to fit the frames.  Otherwise, I might be looking cross-eyed to use the stronger magnification needed to read these days, instead of looking out the bottom of the glasses.  This time, they had marked the lenses with a marker which wouldn’t wash off.  Try as they might, two dots remained on each lens.  They cleaned them with normal glass cleaner, and then still stronger liquids; finally placing them in an autoclave to see if the steam would remove the marks.  It didn’t.

The young lady came out with the glasses in hand to show me the marks, asking half-jokingly if I wanted to just go ahead and take them as they were.  We talked a few moments about how the eyes would adjust to the marks and after awhile, would not even recognize that they were there.  I declined, at which time she replaced my old lenses in the frames and handed them back to me.  “We’ll send them back and make them right this time,” the girl at the desk told me as I left.  I assume that I’ll wait another forty-five minutes the next time they call me back.  But hey, at my age, I’ll take all the breaks I can get.

The lady’s comments got me thinking, though.  I remember that my mom used to look at me as I came home from school and ask, “How can you see through those things?  They’re filthy!”  I would remove the glasses and look at them from a distance; acknowledging that they were indeed, filthy.  The odd thing is that I never noticed the filth.  I would start out the day with clean lenses, accumulating dust and grease gradually as the day progressed.  Little by little, my vision was obscured, never being noticed at all.  But, when I cleaned them!  Wow!  The world became clearer and so much more well defined.  Obviously, the world hadn’t changed, so it could only be that I was just looking at it differently.

How’s your vision?  Have you purposely bought a distorted picture of reality?  Or maybe you’ve just got a build-up of filth from years of being out in the elements.  Either way, you’ll be amazed at how very different the view really can be.  Sometimes blindness needs a miracle touch to give sight.  Other times, we just need to employ the tools we’ve been given and clean the lens.  Either way, it’s a great perspective when unobscured by the grit and grime of doubt and cynicism which are thrown into our faces daily.

I won’t be buying the defective lenses this time.  You might remind me to clean the new ones once in awhile, though.  Fuzzy is okay for teddy bears, but not when I’m looking at your smiling face!

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
Gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.”
(Johnny Nash)

“They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”
(Matthew 15:14)

I’m a “looky loo”.  I’ve actually spent most of my life saying that I am a “people watcher”, but the latter is just a more polite phrase for the former.  I openly admit this as one of my shortcomings.  If something is going on nearby, regardless of my stake in the event, I want to get a look at it.  Sometimes, even after I’ve seen what’s happening and have gone home, I have to return to the scene, to be sure that there hasn’t been another development adding to the interest.  I have nothing to contribute to the situation, no help to offer, but I don’t want to be the one guy in the world who didn’t witness what occurred.

It happened the other night.  I was working in the music store with the Lovely Lady and our watch-mutt in the backyard started barking.  This is not unusual, but under normal circumstances, he’ll stop pretty quickly as the neighbor dog being walked goes around the next corner, or the two middle-aged speed-walking fitness nuts zip past, never missing a beat in their conversation (how do they do that?).  This night, the barking kept up and actually increased in volume, so I stepped out the back door of the business to investigate.  Up the street a hundred feet or less, a police cruiser was stopped next to the sidewalk and three men were standing nearby, one of them in conversation with the officer in the vehicle.  As I watched, the two not talking with the officer walked away in opposite directions.  A moment later, the officer switched on the lights on top of the car and got out, moving around to stand next to the remaining man.  They continued speaking for a few moments, so I decided that there was nothing more to be seen and went back in to work.  This was a rookie mistake on my part.  No veteran “looky loo” would have left so quickly.  In just moments, the volume of the mutt’s yelping increased nearly to the frantic stage, so I exited the store once more.

“Let me see your hands!” was the shout that I heard as I opened the door.  Yep, they really said it.  I thought that was just in the movies, but the officer had his pistol drawn and aimed at someone behind the car wash next door to me, repeating the command several times more before the man evidently complied.  What had started as a single officer in conversation with the man quickly became pandemonium, with no less than 7 cruisers arriving in just seconds.  I saw two officers with drawn weapons, and a third came up from the side of the building I was on with his hand resting on his still-holstered pistol, ready to draw it at a second’s notice.  They rapidly got the man in cuffs and half-carried, half-led him toward the waiting car.  Moment’s later, an ambulance arrived with its siren screaming, to the dismay of the mutt, who went into a full-throated howl at the sound.  From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what the injury was, but stayed where I was for a few moments as the officers wandered through the neighborhood with their flashlights, checking for any of the other individuals who had wandered away just moments before the altercation with their comrade.  When I was sure I wasn’t going to miss any other momentous events, I returned to my work. 

The whole time this went on, the Lovely Lady stayed at her desk, accomplishing exactly what she came to work for, working steadily toward her goal.  She is not a “looky loo”.  What is it about our personalities that makes some of us intensely interested in the goings on in the world, while others are only concerned when the event directly affects them or someone they are connected with?   I don’t ask the question to indicate that either choice is better or worse, simply to call attention to the difference.  There is no arguing that she accomplishes more work, even as events are transpiring, while I spend most of my time playing catch-up because of my lack of focus.

Chances are good, if you’re a casual reader of this blog, you may also be a “looky loo”.  I’ve observed before that the media (especially the so-called “social media”) we have at our disposal brings out the voyeur in us, allowing us to follow many individuals’ activities without the bother of interacting with them.  We can view photos and videos, follow the progress of a “friend” recovering from an illness or injury, and even observe their special days (birthdays and anniversaries) without them ever knowing that we have any interest whatsoever.  The other new label for this activity is “lurking”, and countless numbers of us participate in this.  I will say that I have made a conscious effort to comment on such items of interest, simply because I know myself and how easy it would be to simply watch from the shadows of the Internet.

I have a two-fold purpose in writing today’s post; the first being to remind all of us, myself especially, that it’s not healthy to simply watch events unfold from the sidelines.  I’m certainly not suggesting that we walk into the middle of the arrest scene I described above, but I am suggesting that when we have the opportunity to be involved in our friend’s and neighbor’s lives, we do so actively.  The changing definition of friendship is more than a little disturbing to me and I believe that the further we go into isolation, the more impoverished and consequently, unbalanced as a society we will be. 

My second reason for mentioning the issue of “looky loos” is to encourage the readers of this blog to interact with me and the other readers.  I know that many of you are not comfortable with making public comments, but rest assured; there are ways you can do so anonymously.  Sometimes, I find myself getting discouraged in writing because several posts go by without feedback, but I know you’re out there (the stats don’t lie!).  If you don’t want to actually write a comment, you may opt to click the one-word comments at the bottom of this post.  I’m not looking for pats on the back, but simply your honest input.  You may disagree with something I’ve said in a blog and I’d love to hear your take on what I have written.  If mine is the only voice I hear, you’ll keep getting the same old stuff over and over again.  I’m pretty sure that will get fairly monotonous, if it hasn’t already done so.

Okay!  Enough of the boring stuff!  It seems like exciting things keep happening around me.  I’ll let you know when my next interaction with the men in blue happens.  Come to think of it; I’d rather not.  Maybe we could keep it a little lower key for awhile.  My heart needs time to recuperate from the last one…

“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.”
(Jane Austen~English novelist~1775-1817)

“A friend is very different than an acquaintance.  The former is tried and true; the latter only a casual shadow in one’s life.”
(Anonymous)

“Play me something on this guitar, Paul.  I want to listen to the sound.”  Kurt held out the old classical guitar expectantly.  As I reluctantly took the guitar from his hand, he stepped a few feet away, waiting for me to strum a few chords on the nylon strings.  I thought for a second and then began a classical piece, the name long lost to my memory, which I had learned close to thirty years ago.  It was a pretty basic student piece, with a repetitious high E, plucked in an alternating eighth note pattern throughout the first half of the piece, progressing to a triplet feel toward the end.  For some reason, the song is impressive to listen to, but not so difficult to play.  My rudimentary skills are well suited for this piece, so it’s what I usually play when someone insists that I demonstrate a guitar for them.

Kurt has been around our little town for a few years now, a transplant from New Orleans, uprooted by hurricane Katrina.  He came for the shelter offered in the camp south of town and decided to stay and work for awhile.  I first met him, along with another displaced fellow, who came in to my store from the camp to find a guitar.  They had both been professional musicians in the city and lost everything they had when disaster struck.  The other older gentleman headed back for more familiar territory as soon as he could, but Kurt has carved out a niche for himself here.  He is a seasoned jazz guitar player, so it was gratifying to watch him as I played the little ditty on that old guitar.  The look of surprise and enjoyment on his face was unexpected, but welcome to me as I struggled to manipulate the strings on the frets with my inept left hand and, at the same time, to work out the plucking pattern with the tentative digits of my right hand. 

When I finished the piece, we talked for a few moments about the guitar and took care of our business.  As he exited, he tossed  a comment over his shoulders.  “I never knew you had that in you, Paul.  You really can play the guitar, can’t you?”  I didn’t have the chance to disabuse him of the notion, but I wish it were true.  Years ago, I aspired to learn the guitar, spending a number of late evenings practicing and stumbling through exercises and scales, learning the notation for this frustrating instrument with its odd intervals and difficult chord patterns.  In the battle of man against guitar, the guitar won.  Thirty years later, I still cannot claim anything but the most basic mastery, nor do I anticipate that this will change in the next thirty years.

As usual, my focus is not really on the actual event I describe, but on the illuminating concept that emerges as I consider the implication of Kurt’s words.  I’m wondering if this is not actually a fairly common condition, this hidden talent awaiting an opportunity to surprise others who think they know us.  The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that most of us have gifts, talents if you will, that have lain dormant within us, simply awaiting the time when we realize that it’s now or never.  We succumb to that urge to paint, or write, or play the guitar; whatever it is that has been our secret talent.

Many late bloomers determine to make the most of their dream and seek instructors to help perfect their craft.  Others simply begin to do that which they have put off until it can be put off no longer.   For some, the dormancy was never their plan, but simply a casualty of the necessities of life.  Marriage, family, work – all of these combine to crush our intentions to use the skills we have.  Now at last, those responsibilities have progressed to a point where they demand less of our attention and we remember what it was we once wanted to achieve. 

Are you a late bloomer?  It’s time to get busy!  Start using that secret skill; practicing that talent.  You owe it to yourself to explore the potential.  I’m not saying that everyone around will enjoy it, but give it a shot anyway.  I’m tormenting you with my blooming dream right now.  Writing these posts has been the most fun I’ve had in many years.  I realize that from the other side, it may not be so pleasurable.  Thanks for putting up with me anyway.  I may get better at it as time progresses (or not).  Maybe it’s time you give it a try yourself.  (I don’t mean the writing, unless of course, that’s your passion.) 

If you’re going to run marathons, start training.  Sharpen up the knives if you’re going to try woodcarving.  Somewhere out there is someone who will look at you in surprise and say, “I didn’t know you had that in you!”

It’s time you let the rest of the world in on the secret.

“Hide not your talents.  They, for use were made.  What’s a sundial in the shade?”
(Benjamin Franklin~American statesman, writer, and inventor~1706-1790)

“Hide it under a bushel? No!
I’m going to let it shine!”
(from the children’s song “This Little Light Of Mine” by Harry Dixon Loes~1895-1965)

A man died yesterday as his body was torn by bullets.  Quite likely, he died with a curse on his lips, as he attempted to do what he had done for all of his life; send more of his enemies to their graves in the name of his false god.  One man died.  And, a whole nation rejoiced.

A sinner went to his grave, never to repent, never to know the grace of a loving God.  And, it seems to me that as he entered the gates of Hell, going to eternal torment, many of the very people who should have been saddened at the state in which he died, exulted in his annihilation.

As I sat down to write last night, I struggled with my feelings, believing that I could keep quiet about this and it would pass.  I have spent the day listening to and reading comments from family and friends, only to come to the conclusion that my heart knew the truth, but I was unwilling to expose it to you, unsure of how many of you would react if I made anything approaching a “political” statement.  This is anything but political.  It is the very core of who I am, what my faith has made me.  Tomorrow perhaps, I’ll write a light, funny essay.  Not tonight.

For tonight, I’ll try to keep it short, but I want to say this as clearly as I know how.  I am convinced that Osama Bin Laden had to die.  There was no alternative.  His reign of terror has turned the world upside down.  The repercussions will be felt for generations, perhaps centuries (if we’re still here) to come.  A capture and public trial could only serve to further inflame the hatred and increase the atrocities which have been committed at his behest and in his name.  My head knows this and is content that his death was inevitable.  Our God assures us that evildoers will die.

That said, my heart tells me that we have lost a huge part of ourselves yesterday and today.  My first thought, as I watched the crowds dancing in the street last night, both at the White House and at Ground Zero in NYC, was of the thousands who danced with delight in the streets of many Middle Eastern cities on September 11, 2001.  We also danced, not because justice had been done, but because the vengeance in our hearts was satisfied.  You don’t believe it?  Go back and listen to the sound track of the video.  “Na na na-na, Na na na-na, Hey hey, Goodbye!”  Is that the sound of justice?  Read the posts in the social media today.  Were they of justice and the sigh of relief at the knowledge that a murderer was no longer free to wreak his havoc?  Or, were they of unbridled pleasure that a man was dead?  Really most sincerely dead?  Just like the Wicked Witch, bereft of humanity, of a soul.  “Ding dong, the witch is dead…”

Do I offend?  I don’t mean to.  I am pointing the finger at myself, knowing who I am; knowing my reaction at the news last night.  I am aware of my joy, my elation as I heard the story unfold.  I am as much a part of those mobs as if I was there, singing and rejoicing at a sinner’s entrance into Hell.  The evil man got what was coming to him!  Those were just as much my thoughts and feelings as anyone else in the world.

But, I am convinced that our God (the same One who declares that the evildoer must die), takes no joy in any sinner’s entrance into Hell.  His love speaks against my hatred, my vengeful spirit.  “While we (all of us) were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  We have all been His enemies.  Every one of us deserved annihilation, but instead were offered life. 

I pray that we will recover.  I pray that we will learn.  I pray that we will love our enemies with His unrelenting love.  If we fail, we lose.

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”
“For I do not take pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
(Ezekiel 18:23, 32)

“Do you know me?”  The American Express ads have been running for a couple of decades, showing famous folks; businessmen, movie stars, athletes, and others plying their crafts and then showing the face of the iconic green credit card with their name on it.  I’ve seen those ads for all of those years and have finally given up the dream that one will ever be made for me.  Oh, my shattered dream has nothing to do with not accomplishing anything noteworthy (although it hasn’t yet happened); it’s just that not many of the folks who know what I do also know what my name is.

I don’t make the trip as often as I once did, but when I go into any of the local schools, I walk through the halls with a number of the kids recognizing me and greeting me by name.  The problem is that not one of them calls me by the right name.  “Hello, Mr. Whitmore!”  “Hey guys look!  It’s Mr. Whitmore!”  I just grin and say, “Hello,” right back to each of them without correction.  A fella can only bang his hard head against the same brick wall so many times before realizing that it’s not going to give way.  I’ve run this music store with the Lovely Lady’s maiden name attached to it for over twenty-five years now, so I understand what it would take to fix the problem and it’s not going to happen.  In the business world, they call it “branding”.  In our little town, the name “Whitmore” has been synonymous with music for so many years that it would take a really poor head for business to change the store’s name now. 

It’s not just the school kids.  The phone calls come constantly, with the voice at the other end asking for me.  “May I speak with Mr. Whitmore?”  I used to tell them that I wasn’t sure there was any phone service where he is now, but currently, the stock answer is, “I’m as close as you get to a Mr. Whitmore in this place.  May I help you?”  I can joke about it now, because after all these years, I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to be known for who I am, but mostly for what I do.  It’s a small consolation that when a customer wants something late at night, my brother-in-law gets to field their call, since they look up his last name in the phone book, instead of mine.

As if the Whitmore confusion wasn’t enough, there are the folks who can’t remember my first name, either.  My name is “David” to one of my long time customers.  When I first met this gentleman thirty-four years ago, he had just come to the United States.  Jaime drove his green 1951 Ford pickup truck into a parking spot in front of our store downtown and came in. He spoke no English, so I had to use my minimal Spanish language skills to communicate.  My old friend came in the other day and we talked about the old days, his skill in English having improved exponentially; mine in Spanish, not at all.  “David, we’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?” he asked.  I laughed with him, both about the thought of all the years gone by and inwardly, about the fact that he still calls me David.  I wouldn’t think about correcting him.

The proprietors at one of the local take-out restaurants knew me simply as “Larry” for several years before someone corrected them.  I hadn’t thought it important, as long as they continued to feed me, but they were a little upset that I failed to set them straight myself.  I laughed with them and told them that I wasn’t picky about what I was called, relating my predicament with my last name, so they felt better about their very slight faux pas.  Every once in awhile, I get called “Larry” when I step through the door of that establishment, even now.

Mr. Shakespeare, a few hundred years ago had the lovely Juliet say it in these words, “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose, by any other name would still smell as sweet.”  Titles and names are nothing more than words.  Our lives give meaning to those words.  In the music store, I’m happy to be called by another name, as long as I know that I have accomplished what it takes to gain my customer’s confidence and trust.  In the larger context of my life, I will be content to know that my love for my God, the Lovely Lady and my family, and for my neighbor defines me.  Whether we like it or not, the aroma of our lives takes precedence over any name by which we’re known. 

So, there’ll be no American Express ad to remind you of my famous name, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll come out smelling like a rose anyway. 

“Not everything has a name.  Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.”
(Alexander Solzhenitsyn~Russian novelist)

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
(Lily Tomlin~American comic)

“But, we like water, Grandpa!”  The young man stomping through the lake of water in the backyard looked up at me, eyes twinkling as he spoke the words.  And, I had to laugh.  The sky was raining still more liquid unhappiness and this wet Grandpa was standing with a shovel in his hand, digging a trench.  Up the hill a few feet, my daughter’s home was in danger of filling with water as nearly a foot of water stood against the side of the brick structure.  The ground, saturated from the last several days of precipitation, was no longer allowing water to permeate the top soil, so the excess sought a place to rest.  Another few inches earlier that morning had flowed down from the neighbor’s, filling the low spot beside the house to overflowing, before continuing its journey down the hillside.  Some time during the morning, the water began to seep into the house, soaking the carpet.  With forecasts for more rain to come, the pooling had to be relieved, so the trench was the immediate solution.

I worked alongside my son-in-law and his father, but we weren’t having fun.  This was serious work, with potential for serious consequences if we failed.  The five year old and his younger brother (along with their two sisters when they could sneak out) couldn’t resist the water.  What five and four year old boys could?  Mom had given up on trying to keep them out of the water, but Grandpa was determined that they should understand the seriousness of the problem.  Why?  I couldn’t tell you, but that’s how grumpy old men are.  The happy-go-lucky attitude of the youngsters was annoying.  Anyone can tell you that misery loves company…and there’s no one more miserable than an aging man laboring in the rain at a job that seems like it may all be for nought.  As the boy replied to my reproach with unbridled joy at being able to play in the water on the ground, and more potential fun poured down from the heavens, I couldn’t help but see myself almost fifty years ago –  in the aftermath of a serious hurricane, digging little play trenches in the mud, floating sticks on the rushing current, and stomping along in the puddles; unconcerned about floods and damage to homes, or even dirty, muddy clothes.  And, I laughed with him and began to enjoy the process also.  The water flowed where we wanted, faster and faster, as the lake up by the house drained little by little.

But, our concern for the house was driven by the threat of more rain to come, so we left our playing in the water and began to move sandbags against the side of the building.  I carried my first one to the location in which it was to be placed and leaned over, dropping it into the water from a height of about three feet.  In hindsight this was not a good idea.  The resulting deluge hit me full in the face, drenching my whole body!  I had been damp before, but this was a real dousing, splashing against me with a force that was shocking for about two seconds.  Oh, but I had to laugh!  Actually, the laughter rolled from me in waves, no less profuse than the water that had hit me full force a moment ago.  I could still hear my grandson saying, “But, we like water, Grandpa!”  Still laughing, we set the remaining sandbags in place, praying as we did that they would protect against a subsequent flood, knowing that it was really out of our hands.

As we finished the job and we said our goodbyes, I slid into my car, which I had parked in the yard.  It had been backed in to reduce the distance we had to carry the sixty-pound bags as we moved them into place.  Starting the car, I put it into gear and edged forward…six inches.  The front tires began to spin immediately and the saturated ground claimed another victim.  I managed to bury the front end of the car nearly to the bumper as I attempted to move either backward or forward.  We finally got a little forward movement and my daughter and her father-in-law shoved from behind as I powered my way out of the yard, leaving two deep trenches and an amazingly muddy father-in-law behind me.  I took one look at him and myself and…you guessed it; I had to laugh!  What had started out as a ho-hum day working in the music store, had progressed to playing in the water, getting showered in the process, and ended up with us playing in the mud.  What’s not funny about that?

How’s your sense of humor?  I know many people who go through life seeing the negative side of everything.  I’m actually one of them frequently.  And, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a firm believer in sharing the misery.  If I can’t be happy, I don’t want anyone to have a good time.  But, sometimes it takes the child in us being awakened a bit to help us realize that things aren’t quite as bad as we imagine them to be.  So, lighten up and have a good laugh.  It won’t make the bad stuff go away, but it sure helps to pass the time better.  One way or another, the job can get done; either miserably or joyfully.  For those of you with real problems, it’s not easy to be joyful, but I’m reminded of the proverb that always encourages:  “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.”

I haven’t talked with him yet, but I’m hoping that my son-in-law has a good sense of humor about the huge ruts in his front yard.  Maybe I could get my grandson to cheer him up…

“Life is like a blanket too short.  You pull it up and your toes rebel: you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulders, but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.”
(Marion Howard)

“…and justice for all.”   How many times have I repeated those words?  As a child, it was a daily ritual to stand and face the American flag, placing my right hand over the general locale of my heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  I thought about those last three words the other day for awhile and I’ve about decided that I’m not in favor of that.  Okay…hear me out before you go ballistic on me.  I know it’s un-American to not fight for justice.  But, I’m coming to believe that there may be a better way.  Let’s just say that justice is not what I hope to receive myself.  Let me give you a bit of background for my thought process. 

One of my many money-raising ventures as a boy was to deliver papers.  When I say papers, I don’t mean the daily kind with news in them; the ones for which the customer paid and for which the delivery boy received the princely profit of ten cents per paper.  I mean the “Town Crier”.  This weekly advertising circular was delivered across my hometown by an army of children, boys mostly, for the meager price of one-half of a cent per paper (probably more as time went by).  In addition, the paper could not be thrown from the comfortable seat of a bicycle, as with the daily, but had to be walked to every single door.  We weren’t even allowed to drop it on the porch.  It had to be placed on the door latch or knob.  This meant that the youth delivering this particular paper had to roll each one and then walk his/her entire route, going up to every single door and leaving the paper.  All of that to earn one cent for every two delivered.  We were trusted to deliver all of the papers we picked up from the printing office, as well as following the delivery instructions to the letter.  The reputation of the publisher depended on us.

I will never forget the day the boy delivering the papers on the adjacent route to mine was fired.  It seems that, while I and many others across town were trudging along, delivering the papers one to a house, on the door latch, exactly as directed (250 times for me!), Skip figured out that this wasn’t working out for him.  Halfway through his route, the Free Methodist Church sat empty every week as he went by.  Cutting through the church’s yard one afternoon, he noticed an opening in the foundation.  Curious, he squatted down and peered into the darkness.  It was dark under the building, but suddenly there was a light burning brightly in his brain!  Every week thereafter (until he was fired), he delivered a few strategic papers to their destinations and then turned his feet toward the church, pausing as he passed to throw half or more of his bag’s contents in the crawl space under the old brick structure.  For weeks, the young charlatan was paid for papers he never delivered, until one day a plumber was called to take care of a problem at the church.  This required a trek under the building right through the opening which was now full of stashed circulars!  A call was made to the publisher and the day of reckoning arrived.  Skip was now unemployed, having stolen numerous dollars of Mr.Offerman’s money and deprived his advertisers of the benefits they should have received from the exposure the papers afforded them.

Some of the rest of us who had done our jobs by the book for the pittance we received in remuneration were angry.  We wanted justice!  This cheater should have to give back the money he was paid for delivering those papers.  They had the evidence!  Just count the papers he had discarded and make him pay that back!  Firing him wasn’t justice; it just freed him from future labor and allowed him to keep the profit from his past fraud.

As I contemplated the meaning of justice the other day, another scene was brought to memory.  Around the same time frame, it involved two young men, one of whom shall remain anonymous.  These young men wandered around the neighborhood one afternoon, curious about the rumblings and vibrations caused by earth being moved, and the emissions of diesel smoke from an old vacant field nearby.  They had played there many times over the years and it appeared that some unknown landowner had decided to capitalize on his property.  The graders and backhoes were hard at it, knocking down trees, skimming the dirt off the high spots and filling the low-lying areas.  In short, the boys’ playground was soon to become a housing development.  And, they weren’t happy.  That evening, after the work site had been vacated by the machine operators, the boys returned.  A pocket knife cut a gas line or two, oil dipsticks were removed and thrown into the grass, perhaps even a little dirt found its way into the oil fill tube.  And, as one of the young men broke out a taillight with a large rock, a neighbor appeared at his door to investigate the noise.  The jig was up!  Police reports were filed and the two boys were picked up after school a day or two later to answer some questions down at the police station.  Those of us on the seedier side have a phrase for what we did there.  We sang like canaries.

The owner of the equipment declined to file charges, only requesting that his repair expenses be reimbursed.  I don’t know about the other young man, but I spent the next two years delivering papers and mowing lawns to pay back that debt.  I’ll never forget my Dad’s reaction.  I expected the worst.  Dad could ply the belt with the best of them and this one was bound to be a doozy!  But as I sat on the edge of the bed in his bedroom, he just sat beside me and looked at me.  The hurt written in his eyes and on his face was a worse punishment than any spanking I had ever received.  But, no remonstration came, just his sad voice telling me about the financial agreement we were making and then, it was over.

Mercy.  Not justice; but mercy.  Mercy from a stranger whose property was put out of commission by my shenanigans.  Mercy from a father who was devastated by my actions.  Justice would have been fair, would have been equitable.  But they chose mercy.  I was grateful beyond words.

I must admit that I have not always remembered that lesson well.  As an adult, one day my father and I sat listening to a news story about some young men who had committed a crime.  “They should try them as adults and throw the book at them!” I exclaimed disgustedly.  The quiet answer came from across the room,  “I’m glad there was a man who didn’t think that way when you were a boy.”  His answer has remained with me to this day.  We who have been forgiven have an obligation to forgive, but frequently are the first to demand justice.

Am I preaching again?  I guess I am.  Have you gotten the point yet?  Okay then, one more thought and the sermon is over.  In God’s system, justice is the standard, but mercy gets the last word.  It’s not a bad example for us to follow in our personal lives.  I’ll leave the reader to figure out how to apply the principle.  

And, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to run for president now that I’ve admitted to my sordid and lawless past.  My disappointment is profound.

“Mercy there was great and grace was free.
Pardon there was multiplied to me.
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.”
(William Newell~ American hymn writer~1868-1956)

“Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive; the first is law; the last, prerogative.”
(John Dryden~English poet and dramatist~1631-1700)