The young lady who stood in my doorway wasn’t happy.  And, she stank.  No.  Literally, she stank.  Like the sewer.  I didn’t invite her in.  But she was unwavering in her resolve.  She was going to deliver her message, whether on my doorstep or inside my house.  Warily, I asked her what I could do for her.  In colorful language, she launched into a description of exactly what I could do for her.

Perhaps I should back up a little and set the stage for this conversation.  I was standing in the doorway of the big Victorian home in which the Lovely Lady and I raised our children.  The house was on a sloping piece of property, with a little “mother-in-law” house directly behind it.  That little house was no longer part of our property, but was now a rental property.  There were a number of different occupants during our nearly twenty years in the big house.  The way our house was built, it stood nearly six feet above the ground, but the little rent house out back was built on a slab, so it sat just above ground level.  Shortly before my little discussion with our current neighbor, we had noticed that the drains in our house were running a little slowly.  In fact, just that evening, I had used a plunger, commonly called the “plumber’s friend”, to hurry up the toilet.

I will freely admit that I had to struggle to hold back the laughter at first, as she began her tirade.  “Have you been having problems with your drains?  I don’t know what happened, but I just went into my bathroom and found a stinking mess all over the walls and floor.”  She went on in crude language to describe the disaster, although in fairness to her, the word she used the most is actually the word which is most often utilized in such a description.  I say that I had to hold back the laughter.  The thing is, the picture of me standing in my house wielding the plumber’s helper, just as the space in her bathroom erupted in a flood of the smelly debris she was describing (and wearing), would, in any other situation, have been about as funny a script as you could imagine.  It certainly wasn’t funny to her, nor, as my mind grasped the situation, was it to me.

I was in a quandary.  I could tell her that I had no idea what she was talking about and send her home to call her landlord.  It wasn’t my problem.  I could stay in my house up above her level and continue to use my plumbing, allowing it to flow down to hers, even encouraging it along periodically with the plunger.  I would be just fine.  Let her and her landlord fix the clogged sewer line.

You know, don’t you, that I didn’t do that at all?  We did call her landlord, after I had apologized, and we determined a course of action to repair the problem.  It cost me a lot of money to replace the sewer line to the street, but it had to be done.  True, there was no mess in my house, but mine was the cause of the mess in hers.

I can see those brows wrinkling, as you get to this point and wait for the customary life lesson to begin.  “How in the world does he think there’s a lesson to be learned in this crude story?  What’s to be gathered from a stinking mess in the bathroom?”  Maybe there is none.  Perhaps it’s just a story.

No, you know me better than that.  I do have a point to be made.  I wonder if you see the significance of the juxtaposition of my house to hers.  Do you understand the implication of my big house towering over her little shack, down there on the ground?  Surely, my four bedroom, two bath Victorian house set way up above her little one bedroom, single bath rental entitles me to some privilege.  Why, I have no obligation to her at all!  If she wants her sewer fixed, let her do it herself!

Do you know the term, “noblesse oblige”?  It’s an old French phrase which means, literally, “nobility obliges”.  In other words, there is a responsibility which comes with rank, and if you claim nobility, you must conduct yourself nobly.  In days past, the term was applied to aristocracy, to the ruling classes, but as time has passed, the meaning has come to be understood that those who are blessed with good things have a responsibility to pass on those blessings.  I want you to comprehend clearly that this is not about being told to help, not about being taxed by the government, not even about politics and legislation in the slightest.  It is simply an understanding that “to whom much has been given, much is required.”  Noblesse oblige is no less than what the Savior Himself asks of His followers in the scriptures.  Grace doesn’t exempt us from the responsibility, it actually lays the burden upon us.

I will even go one step further and suggest to you that, whether well-off or needy ourselves, we do not escape the responsibility to aide those who have needs which we can supply.  I often hear folks say that they can’t help anyone because they themselves are not wealthy.  Nonsense!  There is no place in this world where you can’t find someone who is worse off than yourself.  Perhaps the scope of our ability to help is different, but the necessity for us to give out of our bounty is unchanged.

I would venture a guess that many who read these words are fabulously wealthy by the standards of most of the world, while some of you may actually struggle to have food on the table and a roof over your head.  Regardless, it is incumbent upon us to give to, to work with, to lift up, those who have not been blessed as we have been.  Look around you.  You see them every day.  You may have thought that you paid taxes to help them, that there are programs to aid them in their need, but that doesn’t absolve you of your charge to be generous, to be loving, or to offer cups of cool water.

At the risk of ostracizing others of you, I would suggest that it is time for us to stop griping about a government seemingly bent on turning this into a socialist country and to beat them to the punch.  Help the poor.  Visit the people in prison.  Take care of the widows and orphans.  It’s time for us to quit using the excuse of bad government as a reason for not doing what we should already be doing.

Hmmm…that’s a lot of heavy thought to get from a simple sewer repair, isn’t it?  Perhaps, it’s because I know my own heart and my own lack of action that I have ridden this particular hobby horse a little hard and long tonight.  I’m still learning.

Contrary to what you may have heard, what’s mine isn’t mine.  It has only been loaned me for a period of time.  One day, I’ll lay it down and go on without it.  That time comes to every one of us.  While I’m here, I want to invest it the way the Real Owner would want it invested.

It’s time to fix the sewer.  And maybe a few other things in the process, as well.

“Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of you?  Then He will answer them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”
(Matthew 25:44,45~NASB)

“With great power, there must also come–Great responsibility!”
(Spiderman #1~Stan Lee~American comic book author)

“…the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility.”
(Voltaire~French writer/philosopher~1694-1778)

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

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Empty.
No, not empty, but somehow not full;
On the table, a feast is served, but remains untasted.

Down.
Yet, not down, but not high enough.
From the hilltops, climbers beckon and I hang back.

Deaf.
Not stone deaf, still I don’t hear.
From somewhere nearby, music plays, but I can’t comprehend.

Dead.
No.  There is life, but not what you’d call living.
More abundant is promised, yet I’m content to merely exist.

This no-man’s-land was never intended to be
The place where we walk and love and live.
There was always more.

Bread has been offered, and joy without limit.
One with ears to hear will find them filled.
Life forever has already begun.

I’ve stayed here long enough.
Time to move on.
You coming?

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The sky rumbles and lightning streaks across it with increasing recapitulations of the first hesitant flashes.  It promises to be a night of glorious noisiness and beautiful pouring down rain I always anticipate joyfully in the Spring.  You might almost call it a guilty pleasure; guilty because always lurking in the corner of my brain is the realization that there is danger and terror for some in the skies; pleasure because I can’t imagine a more powerful demonstration of nature’s re-creation.

“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth.  They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.”
(Isaiah 55:10~NLT)

But, it’s not my intention to write about the weather tonight.  If it’s talk of the weather you crave, you need only to walk into your local barbershop and sit down.  You’ll be embroiled in an earnest conversation about the heat, or cold, or wind, or rain, within seconds.  Come to think of it, you need not go to the barbershop; head for the florist shop, or the grocery store, or even the library.  We humans talk of the weather when we dare not delve deeper into more personal subjects which have real bearing on our feelings, and beliefs, and very existence.  No, I’ll move on, even though I will keep an ear out for the rain as it alternately pounds  and then gently murmurs on the metal roof above my head.  Who has need of sedatives or mind-numbing alcohol when the tranquilizer of God’s creation is being administered so generously and effectively?

Earlier today though, my mind was not so calm.  I was struggling with my conscience, you see.  A friend, a lady with whom I work periodically, wanted me to make a wager with her.  I don’t gamble.  Well, in honesty, every purchase I make in my business is a type of gamble, but with those, there is a level playing field, with chance having none of the advantage and good judgement carrying the lion’s share of the burden.  But my friend wanted to make a bet about weight loss.  I had shot off my mouth (a fairly regular occurrence) within her hearing about losing a few pounds already in my two-week old venture into ultimately shedding many more of them.  She, needing help to do the same, thought that a competition might aid her in taking the steps necessary to lose a similar amount of weight.

Did I tell you that I don’t gamble?  I have avoided betting on anything since I was thirteen years old.  You may think that is too young to stop gambling, but it was also the year in which I started gambling.  That’s right.  I had made one bet in my life before today.  I didn’t even intend to make that bet, but you know how it is with kids.  Every time someone says something with which you disagree, the words come automatically, “You wanna bet?”  We never intended anyone to take us up on it; the words just meant “you’re wrong and I’m right.”  On this occasion, my friend Steve and I were discussing the upcoming boxing match in New York City.  In Madison Square Garden, on March 8, 1971,”The Greatest” Muhammad Ali and “Smokin'” Joe Frazier were to meet in the fight of the decade.  Being a kid who was all mouth myself, I couldn’t imagine that the big, slow, methodical fighter, Frazier, could ever best Ali, who “floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee”, taunting and mouthing off the whole time.  When Steve told me that Frazier was going to win, I uttered the fateful words, “You wanna bet?”  Within seconds, his hand was stuck out and shook mine as he said, “Yeah, five dollars.”  A day later, Ali went down in defeat after fifteen rounds and a unanimous decision, and I owed Steve five bucks.  Which I didn’t have…

Ever the fast thinker, I realized that I carried in my pocket the answer to my dilemma–the lunch card, paid for by my dad at the start of every month.  Most of the kids who used these were from financially disadvantaged families and the cards were free to them.  My dad never wanted to dig for cash for five kids at the beginning of each day, so he arranged with the school to purchase the cards for the full face value.  Steve was a big kid who liked to eat, so I had my answer.  Every day for a week, I waited in line with him in the cafeteria and, when we got to the station to make payment and get a tray, I handed Mrs. Olsen the card and Steve took the tray and got a free lunch.  I went without my noon meal for a week.  I never forgave Muhammad Ali.

I have also never made another bet…until today.  I accepted the wager my friend offered.  You see, I have learned a few other things during my lifetime, one of the most important being that you should never miss a chance to help someone if you have the capability to do so.  This is almost a no-brainer.  We are going to see who can lose twenty-five pounds in the shortest amount of time.  The loser will pay for a nice dinner for the winner.  I can’t lose.  No.  That didn’t come out right.  I’m pretty sure that I can lose…the pounds.  It’s just that this is a bet that I can’t lose, even if I do lose, if you take my meaning.  If she wins the actual competition, it will be worth every penny spent to encourage her in her goal to shed the pounds.  And, the friendly competition will give me incentive to work harder at watching what goes into my mouth and to keep to my exercise regimen.  This is not a bet, it’s an investment!

Did you notice when I told you I was battling my conscience earlier?  The battle didn’t last long.  One thing we must understand is that many of the legalistic tenets we have followed, simply because we were taught that they were right, are actually detrimental to our mission as followers of Jesus.  “Thou shalt not gamble,” is a law never found in the text of the Word.  Yet we treat that important concept, which helps us to avoid financial disaster and self-centered thinking, as absolute.  What I’m saying is that when the opportunity comes for us to help our neighbor by putting aside a concept, we shouldn’t have to think twice.  I will be happy to pay the price for losing this wager.  That said, I’d also be happy to have the nice meal to enjoy after all the scrimping on calories I’m going to do over the next few months.

Perhaps it’s time for us to examine the things we believe and consider the necessity (or lack thereof) for all of our rules and regulations.  You might be surprised at what needs to go.  There is also the possibility that some other safeguards need to be added.  I’m all for structure.  But, I like the idea that “form follows function” as well, an idea which I have discussed with you before.  On that last occasion, I warned against change simply for the sake of change.  Tonight, I invite you to consider the purpose (function) for which we exist and then to determine if the forms to which we hold actually do help us to achieve that purpose.  It they don’t, we need to break out of them and do the things which help us to deliver the goods.

“No gambling” isn’t a law, but a principle.  I want to be very careful here and be unambiguous in saying that I do not mean that we have the option to cast off those things which are compulsory.  There are absolutes and they must be adhered to.  Tonight, I’m speaking specifically of the protocols of do’s and don’ts which we have added to those absolutes.  Somehow the guidelines become law over time and before we know it, we believe that they themselves are the absolutes, when they are most decidedly not.

Oh boy.  I’ve gone a lot deeper than I intended, when I said that I would speak of a more important subject than the weather.  Perhaps we should extricate ourselves from this tangled mess and finish up.  You’ll make your own way out as you can, will you not?

The match is on, the bell has rung.  The prize once again is the cost of meals, just as it was over forty years ago in my only other wager.  I couldn’t afford to lose that one.  This time, whatever happens, I simply can’t lose. I like these odds.

Tomorrow, we’ll come out swinging.  Let’s hope it’s a good, clean fight…

“The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.  It is twice blessed-It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.”
(William Shakespeare~English playwright and poet~1564-1616)

“There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.”
(Muhammad Ali~American boxer)

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“There are no more possible moves.  What do you want to do?”  The words in the little blueish box glare out at me, demanding an answer.  I am taking a break from work and the computer game of Solitaire seemed as if it would be a welcome diversion.  I said it seemed so.  As I gaze at the meddling dialog box, I am not relaxed.

What do I want to do?  I’m not really sure.  I could start the game over again.  I’ve done that before.  The problem is that almost without fail, the game ends in exactly the same way–with the frustrating blue box staring me in the face.  I seem to see the same moves as the time before and miss any other options.  Perhaps there is no right path to take anyway.

What do I want to do?  I could go back a few moves and try to make some different choices.  Again, almost invariably, the result is the same.  The road is already set in place and I simply move along it, clicking on the possible moves, knowing that at any second the detestable blue box will pop up with it’s digital version of a child’s “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo”, to mock me.

What do I want to do?  I quit. No more struggle; no more frustration; no more offensive blue box to make my life miserable.  In fairness, I only quit this particular game and play another, with a new deal, a new set of possibilities.  But, sooner or later, the little imp in the machine gets restless and appears once more.  I am done.  Click.  “Quit the game?”  Frustrated, I bang my hand down to manipulate the “yes” response.  “Stupid game!”

Beaten. The end. Finis. It’s only a game after all.  Or, is it?  

You’ve seen the list of famous “failures”, haven’t you?  The folks that went on to be amazing stars in their field, who were rejected on their first (and sometimes fiftieth) attempt.  Here are just a few of them:
Walt Disney…fired from an early job at a newspaper.  The editor said that he “had no imagination” and “no good ideas.”  Out of options?
Michael Jordan…cut from his junior-varsity high school basketball team.  Game over?
Henry Ford…failed in business five times and was left penniless each time.  Time to quit?
Abraham Lincoln…went bankrupt twice, failed in business several times, and lost in twenty-six attempts at political office.  No more possible moves?

This is only a tiny sampling.  Many, many more “successful” people have failed and failed and failed again at their chosen profession, but believing that they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, ignored the signs right in front of their faces and found other moves to make.

Being in the music business, I have seen my share of people give up on their dreams.  I won’t tell you that all of them should have followed those dreams in the first place.  For every wild success in the music world, there are thousands of mediocre talents who are best suited to other pursuits, while keeping music in the context in which it functions best, that of enjoyment and, assuming a spiritual world-view, praise for their Creator.  That said, there is something noble in the folks I see who have never given up their original aspirations.  Always hoping, always scheming, always honing their skills, these people refuse to take no for an answer.  One of these, a man in his seventies who has a fairly good local following for his music, was excited as he spoke with me recently.  “I’m selling a lot of my recordings in Europe now.  I wonder if I should put together a little tour over there?”  In his seventies.  No “game over” for him; none of this “no more possible moves” in his vocabulary.  I admire his spirit.

What about you?  Have you been beaten?  Did somebody take a baseball bat to your dreams and destroy you in the process?  Try as you might, that brick wall in front of you can’t be knocked down or scaled over or tunneled under?  Nobody ever said it was easy.  But, they didn’t tell you it would be this hard.  Perhaps it’s time to quit.  I hope you won’t.  I hope you’ll keep fighting.  Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, always the optimists, never the quitters, I hope you’ll keep going against impossible odds.  (I wonder if they really did make it to Australia?)

“When you get the choice to sit it out, or dance…I hope you’ll dance.”

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot!  Fred Astaire?  “Can’t act.  Can’t sing.  Can dance a little.”

Success is just over the next mountaintop.  Keep climbing!

“I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens.
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out, or dance;
Dance.”
(“I Hope You Dance~Mark Sanders/Tia Sillers~American songwriters)

“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
(Matthew 7:7,8~NASB)






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Bombs exploded in the streets today.  People died.  Others will bear the scars and disfigurement for a lifetime.  Tonight, the pundits and the muckrakers are all at it; on television, in print, even on the social media.  In times past, I too have attempted to fill the incredible vacuum left by such acts with words of comfort, or explanation, and even accusation.  I have none to offer tonight.  My heart aches and the words won’t come.

I hope that you will pardon a departure from the horror and the recriminations which are flying.  I have a great personal need to escape the barrage of information and speculation for a little while.  With that in mind, I invite you to take a few moments with me to revel in the innocence of youth and nature, with not a shadow of terror, nor a twinge of pain.  Perhaps tomorrow, we’ll take up more serious subjects.  Today, I offer a simple essay, descriptive of simple pleasures.  You may have seen it before.  

Maybe you’ll even take the time to plant a dandelion or two yourself today, just to remember what it was like before…

Of Parachutes and Helicopters

I planted some dandelions today.  Oh, c’mon admit it.  You’ve done it too.  Who can resist the tantalizing wispy white head of a dandelion plant in springtime?  You hold the beautiful stem in your hand, gazing directly at the horde of delicate seeds gathered in a circle around the ovule at the top of the stem.  Their tenuous grip on their life source indicates their readiness to make the trip for which they were designed.  If you examine them closely, you’ll notice that each seed has a tiny, slender stem itself, the bottom of which is attached to the main plant.  At the top of that tiny stem is an umbrella, a parachute of sorts, specifically designed to carry the seed far enough away from its sire to multiply the species.

Careful not to inhale too close to the seed head, you take a deep breath and push it back out again, directing the stream of air right at the puffball.  The resulting explosion of little flying whirligigs is spectacular!  And, if you weren’t watching so carefully out of the corner of your eye to see if the neighbors were peering angrily from behind their curtains, you would laugh for joy to see God’s creation at work.  A common weed, we call it.  Ha!  More like a miracle in action, putting to shame all the complicated machines that our feeble minds can contrive to complete the tasks we deem important.  The simplicity, along with the amazing resilience, is so far beyond our imaginations that we can only marvel.  The process needs us not at all, as is evidenced by all the empty stems I see as I view the yard.  The strong storm winds have already spread the plant’s progeny to the four corners of my property (and maybe just a little beyond, truth be told).  The gentle rain that fell last week has already aided in pressing them into the soil, and even tonight, I imagine they are starting to germinate, putting down their stubborn tendrils into the damp earth, preparing for another bumper crop in a few weeks.

I hear the naysayers in my ear as I write this.  “Why would you allow this vicious weed to thrive in your yard?  Don’t you know it’s aggressive and ugly?  Aren’t you aware that it spreads to my perfect lawn?”  Of course I know that after I mow the lawn, they pop up and make it look as if I haven’t mowed at all.  I know that millions of dollars annually are spent trying to eradicate this “blight on the landscape”, but all in vain.  Ugly or not, I’m doing my part to protect the species, although it has no need of my protection.  I must admit, I have never dug a dandelion plant from my yard, never sprayed a drop of pesticide to control them.  They are, to me at least, one of Spring’s best gifts to the awakening world, with those wonderful maple helicopters running a close second.

The fantastic design of that maple seedpod is, without question, another source of wonderment for me.  This spring, the red maple in my backyard is covered with thousands of the odd winged vessels.  It is more properly called a “samara”, but I much prefer the descriptive name “helicoptor”.  Of course, the English have a fine name for it also; calling it a “spinning jenny”.  Every two years or so, the slender branches of the spreading tree almost sag beneath the weight of the seeds (as with this year), until the spring winds call to them, coaxing them off, first just a few at a time.  I like to think that the first ones are the adventurous type, not needing the company of the rest to know that this is what they were made for.  And then, before you know it, the slightest breeze fills the air with the spinning, gyrating seeds, headed by the hundreds of thousands to a resting place in the surrounding yards and ditches, awaiting their time to be pressed down into the soil and be watered; ready to spring up into saplings.  If we humans weren’t so intent on open spaces in which to do nothing, the hills would be covered with the beautiful trees.  Oh, I know…not all of the seeds would produce trees.  If they did, the forest would be so dense nothing could live.  But, as it is, I am particularly fond of the maple trees, with their large shade-providing leaves,  shaking and quivering in the storms, turning brilliant oranges and yellows before loosing their grip on the branches in the fall; only to be the earliest to burst forth again as the warm air triggers the life-cycle once more in the springtime.

I will grudgingly admit to the beauty of the autumn, and even the excitement of a beautiful snowfall in the dead of the winter, but spring is the season I love best.  I think it’s because my mind cannot fully contain the wonder of creation; cannot take in the fantastic design of the wonderful and diverse organisms surrounding us, from the flowering trees and bushes, to the pollinating hedges (covered with bees and flies to carry the pollen far away), to the amazing methods of regeneration afforded to all of the growing, thriving flora and fauna around us.  The intricate designs of a loving Creator overwhelm the intellect, as well as the senses, with each new bloom and every living thing that meets the eye.

It also might have something to do with the simple pleasures that spring affords.  I think that’s exactly the way our Creator intended it, too.  And, it doesn’t hurt that I love it when the children in my life are overjoyed as they plant dandelions along with this silly, aging man.  I can’t imagine a better way to spend a cool springtime evening!

“If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn.”
(Andrew V Mason M.D.~American doctor and author)

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”
(A.A. Milne~English author)

A repeat of one of my favorite posts, which appeared on April 12, 2011.  Sometimes you just figure you can’t improve on your first take. 

He had watched the sun come up from his vantage point on the western bank of the rolling river, the Mighty Mississippi, while listening to the dulcet tones of the old trumpet player and, with tears still in his eyes, turned away to wander back into Jackson Square, just as the city of New Orleans was waking.  The restaurants were busy, the coffee shops crowded, but he hadn’t come to eat.  For two hours or more, he wandered the streets, finding exactly what he was seeking for.  He had forced himself out of bed while it was still dark just so he could listen to the street musicians and listen, he did.

No slouch of a guitar player himself, he was anxious to sample the varied fare this aged city had to offer.  There was no disappointment in the search.  From street corners and even in the alleys, the city is full of people with their talents on display.  Many do it for the love of their craft, others simply to have enough to fill their stomachs.  He was to find a third type on this day.

The seeker stopped for a few moments at one corner to listen to the two women playing classical music, a departure from the normal street fare in this city of Jazz and Blues.  Speaking for a moment with another man standing nearby, he learned that both were music professors in nearby universities.  He dropped a dollar or two in the open violin case and moved on.  Many of the musicians he listened to were not as well educated, but he avers that all were just as talented.  Except one.

The old fellow had a good quality guitar sitting on his lap.  The ancient Guild six-string might have seen better days, but it was a fine instrument.  Still, he never played a single chord.  Our friend wondered why this was so and walked a bit nearer to the bench the aging man was occupying.  It did seem to him that the fellow was old, but he really is not sure.  Living on the streets will age a person long before his time.  He might have been as young as thirty or as old as sixty.  It was hard to tell.  As he drew near, though, the tourist saw the problem.  While there should have been six, the old acoustic guitar only had three strings stretched out along the length of the fingerboard.  Even they were old and corroded.  The other street musicians had played for whatever money the passersby would toss in their hats or cases, but this fellow had a different tack.  “Say, could you give me the money to buy a set of strings?”  Our friend almost fell for the scam.  After all, what was five or six dollars?  Give the old guy enough to buy a set of strings so he could earn a living…how could that go wrong?  Then he had an idea.  “I saw a music store up the block a ways.  How about you and I go and we’ll get a set put on your guitar?  I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

The old guy wasn’t amused.  That was the last thing he wanted.  “No.  I’ll just take the money for the strings.”  The tourist talked with him for just a minute more.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the money would be used for.  There was never to be a new set of strings on the guitar.  It would never play a song on that street corner–ever.  The fellow with the guitar knew how to make money with his guitar, he just couldn’t play it.  The superbly crafted instrument, with the potential for making sweet music lifting the spirit to the heavens, or bringing tears to the eyes of hardened men who listened, was nothing but a prop for an act.  If it had strings on it, he couldn’t make a dime with it.  He wasn’t a musician at all, just a man with a scam, a fraud, to be perpetrated on every unsuspecting tourist who came by.  Our friend moved on, disappointed.

I listen to the story and my mind wanders.  I remember the fellow I gave a ride to one day recently.  I drove him twenty miles out of my way and handed him all the cash I had in my pocket, so he could make it home to his wife and kids by bus.  Two days later, as he wandered past my music store, it was a shock to realize that I had been played.  Then there was that other fellow I loaned money to, just until he got paid from his new job.  The job was a lie–so was the payback.  The stories, just like the street “musician” with his guitar–merely the tools of the trade, designed to achieve a purpose, but never to become reality.

Just as quickly, my mind shifts gears, and I wonder how many folks I have conned, in much the same way; people who have poured resources into my life, with the promise that changes would be made, never to see or hear a result.  How am I any different from the old fellow down in the French Quarter, with his beautiful guitar which never will make music?  Still, I show up time after time, with habits which need to be broken, sins which need to be repented of, steps which never seem to be taken.  And, no music is ever heard.

How about it?  Got a few broken strings yourself?  Have there been promises made of changes to come, with nary a hint of actual rehabilitation?  Do you come and sit on the same street corner every day, or perhaps every week, with the same broken strings; always with the promise to show up with a playable instrument the next time?

I’m guessing that if we look deep inside, we’ll all find the broken promises, the scams, the assurances which we don’t seem to ever quite fulfill.  Like the man on the street corner, we have figured out how to make the system work for us, always thinking that we’ll make it right–someday.

All right, I’ll quit preaching.  Anyway, I’m thinking it’s about time for a new set of strings to be taken down from the wall.  There’s a good bit of grime to be cleaned away before they can be installed, but the basic instrument was made well.  I’m confident that when the job is done, there will be some excellent music heard.

It’s just the process of cleaning and stretching, then cutting and tuning that I’m not real sure of.  It all sounds a bit painful.  Ah well, I know the Maker of the music, the Master Luthier.  I’m thinking the final result will be worth it all.

His work never fails to produce some gorgeous music.  Maybe it’s about time that I put my hat down on the street.

Why don’t you come too?  We just might make some great music together!

“Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.”
(from “Rescue The Perishing”~Fannie Crosby~American hymn writer~1820-1915)

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
(George Orwell~English novelist~1903-1950)

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

I set my coffee cup down as I prepare to write tonight and my eyes are drawn to the old CD I am using as a coaster on my desk.  I never noticed the title before.  Today, it feels just about right.  Perhaps I’m just feeling the residual effects of the “short walk” taken with the Lovely Lady earlier this evening.  When she called it that, she didn’t tell me that it would be pure torture for every inch of the abbreviated course.  I have been conscientious of late to keep to an exercise regimen, realizing that what little exertion is expended to reach the television remote from my easy chair could not fairly be called keeping fit.  That said, the pace the lady of the house set as we walked in the brisk evening air was something a bit shy of a trot.  I’m not good at trotting.

But no.  The reason I feel this way has nothing to do with the physical energy expended earlier.  My thoughts probably weren’t much affected by the long nap I took after supper, either.  I tend to enjoy that sort of activity more than I should, although the odd guilty twinge sometimes pokes me after a particularly long one, such as today’s was.  No.  Something else has put me through the wringer on this day.  It happened earlier, while I was at work at the music store, and perhaps actually much before that.  Let me explain.

Today, we made a business decision that appears as if it is likely to cost us a significant amount of income for the store.  It has been coming for a long time, but actually pulling the plug on the part of the business affected was an action which was almost more painful than that walk today.  (Okay.  I promise no more complaining about that–tonight.)  We have been in a business relationship with another company for several months.  The result has been a good source of cash flow for us.  Not a whole lot of profit, but sometimes just the movement of stock is beneficial.  That came to an end today.  The writing has been on the wall for a couple of months, but it became crystal clear today that the decision had to be made.

Without mentioning any details, the company with which we were working is asking us to do some things which we think are unethical.  In two distinct areas, we would have to compromise our principles to continue our relationship.  The feeling that we should end our relationship has grown stronger over the last few weeks, but I was reluctant to take action.  It’s funny how a confluence of events can force a decision, but today, as I was researching how best to withdraw our products from that marketplace, my telephone rang.  I didn’t recognize the number, and was surprised to be speaking with a representative of the company.  He said that he had called just to put the last straw on the proverbial camel’s back.  Well…he didn’t say that, but it was the effect of his call, as he informed me that the company was rejecting my request to make a change which would have rectified at least one of the issues for us.

Immediately after hanging up the phone, I stepped into the furnace.  Without delay, we made the decision to forego the cash income which was virtually a guarantee if we continued the relationship, and took action to end it right then.  It’s not an enjoyable place to be.  We can feel the blast of heat as we walk into the fire.

You do, of course, understand the comparison to the young Hebrew men in the fire?  We learned the story from Daniel as children.  The three men refused to compromise their ethics and chose a nearly certain death rather than deny who they were at the very core of their beings.  Please don’t get the idea that I think our sacrifice will cost us nearly as much.  It’s only money.  We’ll survive.  But, for all that, the fear is still present.

And the faith.  Don’t forget the faith.  We have always attempted to make business and personal decisions based on our firm foundation and what we know that our God demands.  And, like the men in the fire, now we get to leave the consequences to Him.

I know we’re not in this furnace alone.  Well, besides God, who walked around in that one centuries ago with the Hebrews, and does still.  What I mean is; I’m certain that there are many of you who make similar decisions everyday.  You know what is right to do and you do it, regardless of the personal cost.  Your boss insists that you lie for him or her and you refuse, at the potential cost of losing your job or being demoted.  Your friends urge you to go ahead and keep that wallet you found, but you turn it in, knowing you’ll never get a dime for it and you will lose your friends’ esteem, in spite of your honesty.  The lady at the tax agency suggests that you fudge a little on the declaration of what you paid for the new car, but you state the real number, even though it costs you hundreds of dollars.  The list of times you must make choices to act uprightly before God and man is endless, moment by moment, day by day presenting you with opportunities to take the easy (and profitable) way, or to do the hard thing, risking loss.

As I began to write this tonight, the song which was playing on my latest CD was one which really doesn’t have very deep Christian roots, but it speaks to me, nonetheless.  Mr. Phelps is again crooning the words, “Walk on though the wind; Walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown.”  I do feel the effects of the storm.  I don’t have to be here, but I choose to be.  I’m glad that you’re here, too.

Oh!  He’s here too.  Did I already say that?  Yeah, like the song says, “You’ll never walk alone.”

Through the fire.  Through the storm.

It’s still a safe place to be.

“When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm is a golden sky, and the sweet silver song of the lark.”
Walk on through the wind; walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on. Walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.
You’ll never walk alone.”
(Oscar Hammerstein II~American lyricist~1895-1960)

“For loving money leads to all kinds of evil, and some men, in their struggle to be rich, have lost their faith and caused themselves untold agonies of mind.”
(I Timothy 6:10~Phillips)

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

Once again, darkness comes, as night falls over the earth.  I feel as if I am already in the dark; another sad event has brought the blackness in waves to wash over me.

We came close to forming a business partnership once, he and I.  Bear owned a specialized music instrument company which sold vintage instruments online and we had done business before, but it was always me selling and him buying.  This time, the gentle, likeable fellow, about the same age as I, was ready to take another step forward in our business relationship.  He had been working out of his house and he needed a facility in which to restore the old instruments he was acquiring.  I had just bought a different building and he had hopes that we could come to an agreement.  After we talked about the income and growth potential for both of our companies and he looked over the physical layout, we agreed to take some time to think about it and then get back together to see if both of us were still interested.

It was fifteen years ago.  I think that was the last time I actually saw my friend.  I see him still in my mind, standing in the nearly empty back room, excitedly talking about the potential for a large workbench.  He looks out the door and wonders about adding on warehouse space.  It was not destined to be.  Both of us were independent (perhaps a little stubborn, even) and wanted to keep control of our own businesses, not a good basis on which to start a partnership.  A phone call a week later on my part, to decline, was met almost with relief, and by his kind and gentle suggestion that we should keep in touch.  Except for one occasion very soon after that, we haven’t talked in almost fifteen years.  I checked in on his website once in awhile and he seemed to be doing well.  In my head, he still stands there, strong and young, and ready to take on the whole world.

The other day, I came across an instrument I was sure he would be interested in.  In fact, I have been thinking of him frequently, as the last few months have brought a virtual influx of the vintage instruments he would have loved.  Today, I picked up the phone and called his number, excited to talk with my friend again and tell him about this horn and others I just knew he would fall in love with.  After a few rings, I heard a click on the other end and an old man, barely to be heard, answered shakily.  I asked if I could speak to Bear, certain that this would be his dad.  “This is he,” came the labored, painfully quiet answer.  I wasn’t sure I had dialed the right number, but we talked anyway.  I won’t bore you any more with our conversation, nor with the details of his illness and hospitalization.  He fears he will never again return home.  I’m confident he is right.  I miss my friend already.

But, then again, I stop to consider that we are not the masters of our existence on this planet.  I’m remembering a time, just over five years ago, when I was stricken with a serious case of vertigo.  After two days in bed with no remedy for the world-spinning dizziness but to lie still with my eyes closed, the Lovely Lady insisted that I see the physician.  I couldn’t even walk, needing a wheelchair to make my way down the hallway at the doctor’s office.  After my appointment, I was wheeled out again by the nurse and an old friend, who worked in the office there, caught sight of me.  Aghast at what she saw, and sure that I was dying, she called her husband to tell him that he needed to check on me right away.  “He’s really in bad shape!”  were her words to him.  Needless to say, I recovered.  My friend, on the other hand, was dead within a couple of months, an undiagnosed brain tumor wreaking its horrible damage before any treatment could save her.

You want guarantees?  There are none.  I laughed as a representative of my guitar supplier described the warranty for the guitars they just shipped to me last week.  “Iron-clad” are the words he used to prop up the backing they would grant for their product.  I think he expected the words to evoke the image of knights in shining armor riding to save my business reputation, should any problem with one of these fine instruments arise.  Alas, I have seen companies come and go in my time in the business and the true meaning of the words “lifetime guarantee” dawns afresh each time.  It is good for the lifetime of the company that backs it, not the lifetime of the customer buying the product, as most of us believe.  There is no such thing as an iron-clad guarantee made by man.  

Centuries ago, the strong-willed disciple, Peter, said the words, “All flesh is like grass and its beauty as the flowers in the grass.”  He wasn’t the first one to say it.  Others before him, just as cheerily, reminded us that the wind blows and the field which we bloomed in won’t even remember us.  Here today–gone tomorrow.  That’s our guarantee.  The only variable in the guarantee is the question of when tomorrow will arrive.  It could be fifty years away.  Then again, it could be in the next instant.

It is easy to sink into depression, to become fatalistic, isn’t it?  We’re all going to die anyway; what’s the use of even trying?  Perhaps we could just be like a weed, instead of a flower.  Not even a hint of beauty, nor joy.  If we can’t be happy, we’ll make no one else happy.

I’m wondering if there may be more to this life than simply existing, though.  Short-lived flowers though we may be, we have the opportunity, in this instant, to spread joy like an infection through those we come in contact with in this huge field.  The bees are buzzing around, ready to take the pollen we are producing to other parts of the field.   We can make a difference right now, right here.  But we must do it right now.  There is no time to waste in self-pity, no purpose to be served in staying in the shadows another moment.

I will admit that it is easy for me to become discouraged, to allow the blanket of darkness to wrap around and steal what time I actually do have away.  What a waste that would be if I (and you) actually gave in to those urges.  Out in the wide field of the world, the sun is shining and there is work to be done.

All is not dark; all is not gloom.  Sadness comes and it goes.  The great beauty which our Creator has instilled in His handiwork is not dimmed by the momentary darkness.

We even get a chance ourselves, to shine – here and there.  I think I’m ready to spend a little time in the sunshine for a change.

Did you pack your sunscreen?

“‘It is not so dark here,’ said Theoden.  ‘No,’ said Gandalf.  ‘Nor does age lie so heavily on your shoulders as some would have you think.'”
(from “The Two Towers”~J.R.R.Tolkien~British author/scholar~1892-1973)

“Work, for the night is coming,
Work through the morning hours;
Work while the dew is sparkling,
Work ‘mid springing flowers;
Work when the day grows brighter,
Work in the glowing sun;
Work, for the night is coming,
When man’s work is done.”
(Anna L Coghill~English poet/writer~1836-1907)

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