“They stole a quarter of a million dollars from the kids!”  The television camera was focused on an angry father, standing in the midst of a mob of other parents, all of them just as angry as he.  The reporter illuminated.  “It appears that the travel agent who was entrusted with the job of arranging the Hawaii trip for these local band kids has disappeared with all the money.”  As the story unfolded, we learned that it was likely that the man had invested the money unwisely and was unable to produce either the cash or the tickets and lodging for the scheduled trip.  Three hundred children, disappointed and disillusioned, will not make the anticipated journey to the island paradise because of one man’s greed.

I’m angry, along with the parents.  But, as I listened to the newscaster, I was reminded that it happens all the time.  In the mid nineteen-nineties, the local Christian university was swindled out of two million dollars by a “philanthropic” firm who had claimed that the school’s investments of cash would result in significant increases due to donations from charitable organizations.  It turned out to be a “ponzi” scheme, netting the swindler huge sums of cash and leaving the university and many other organizations in serious financial straits.

As I continued to consider the situation, I realized that my frustration with scams goes back a lot further than even that relatively recent event.  I remember a day in the early nineteen-sixties.  The phone in the living room rang, to be answered by my oldest brother.  The voice on the other end of the line informed him that the call was from a local radio station and that our household had been selected as winners of the first prize in their current giveaway.  The prize?  A brand new color television!  Delivery details would be attended to by a popular appliance store immediately.  “Enjoy your new television!”  The caller hung up.  When my brother replaced the receiver, he turned to us in shock and repeated the conversation.  We were ecstatic!  A color TV?  We didn’t even have a black and white set!  A color TV!

Our elation lasted for days.  The next day, by chance, a station wagon, with the logo of a local appliance store plastered on the door, turned into the next door neighbor’s circle drive.  We were at the car in a flash.  “You want the house over there!  We’re getting the free television!”  The confused driver looked down at his paperwork and then back up at us, saying with a smile on his face,  “No, this is where I’m supposed to be.  I think someone is pulling your leg.”  We went home disappointed, but not discouraged.  For the next few days, we expectantly kept an eye on the road in front of the house, but the possibility that the man’s words might be true started to take root in our minds. Finally, after a week had elapsed, the skepticism was full grown and we admitted that we had been tricked.  Some teenager was just having fun at our expense.  It was nothing more than a prank call.  I think I was scarred for life.

Prank calls are supposed to be short and amusing.  “Is your refrigerator running?  Then, you better go catch it!”  “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?  You really should let him out!”  That’s the way prank calls are intended to work.  Ask the leading question and then spring the trap.  The victim is annoyed and the payoff is immediate.  There is no long term damage, no waiting for the conclusion.  This…this was diabolical!  The prankster could only have imagined that there was any mental anguish, could only hope that his words had the desired effect.  This one succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with the gullible children at my address, but he would never know it.  It has to be the cruelest of all phone pranks, with no payoff at all for the culprit, just a desire to cause emotional trauma and the imagination that it would succeed.

I exaggerate the mental anguish, but I still remember the feeling like it was yesterday.  I could not believe that there were such cruel people in the world.  Up to that point, the meanest humans I knew were my older brothers – and I didn’t want to know anyone meaner.  This though…this took cruelty to a new level.  I didn’t like the feelings of wealth, the joy of ownership, followed so quickly and conclusively by the assurance of abject loss and humiliation.

Although the reality is considerably different, I imagine that the feelings are the same for the kids in the band.  They were promised a trip to a tropical paradise and reveled in the plans they were making, the excitement of anticipation.  Today, they are derailed and inconsolable.  The conviction of good things to come has been replaced with certainty of disaster.  Not only money was stolen from them; their hopes have been pilfered from under their noses.  It is possible that some will be scarred for life.

The reality is that life is replete with con artists.  The truth is that we will all be scarred by these individuals.  Can I go one step further and tell you that you probably look at one of them every morning?  No, not the person you wake up next to, although they may be one also.  I’m referring to the person at whom you gaze in the mirror.  We all “play the angles”, making promises that we cannot (or don’t intend to) keep in order to gain something.  I’m reminded that I presented my best side to win the Lovely Lady’s heart prior to our marriage, but the dissimulation was dropped upon achieving the goal, as is often the case.  My guess is that there were a few moments (or possibly hours) of lost hope on her part, the knowledge of the entire flawed package bringing recognition of the flim-flam game which had been played on her.  To her credit, she has had the patience to work through those first disappointments and I’ve grown a bit more mature in making improvements on the original product.  There are still moments, though…

We could go into the causes and cures for the scams that continue throughout our lives, but volume upon volume has been written to explain both.  For those held in the snare and tight grip of hopelessness and despair, there are counselors who are much better prepared to help than I.  I will say this, though.  Sometimes, we need look no further than the con-man (or woman) in the mirror to determine much of the problem.  Unreasonable expectations are placed on many relationships by both parties, with greed entering the picture from both angles.  When I was a child, my greed for a prize of epic proportions outweighed my suspicions that I had been tricked.  Most scams cannot operate without the victims’ greed being a large part of the equation.  It has become anathema in recent years to “blame the victim”, but I can’t help but remember my Mama’s wisdom, when I would run to her for sympathy after being jostled or hit by a sibling.  She would say unsympathetically, “If you hadn’t been standing where you shouldn’t have been, you couldn’t have been hurt.”  While it is not always true (the band kids stand out as a prime example), most scams immediately fall on their faces without willing and greedy victims.

Check your heart.  Are you in this venture for yourself?  Are you in it to benefit others?  There is no guarantee of success either way, but if the latter is true, the damage to yourself will be minimized.  If I expect no personal gain, the failure of the venture simply encourages me to be more disciplined in the next attempt.  The crooks and liars can’t hurt you if you have nothing in the game to lose.  The best example of this I can point to?  None better than the Savior.  The wicked men who sat in judgment of Him didn’t kill Him.  He freely gave what they thought they were taking.  Long before that, without taking thought to His personal rights, He laid down  his position in Heaven to become like us and walk this soil as we do. 

Too simplistic?  It’s all I’ve got.  I’m convinced that it’s all there is.  When we give up our demands of what we desire, we give.  Period.  No more scarring.  No more disillusionment.   No more lost color televisions!

 I’m not there yet.  There’s still a good bit of that road in front of me.  But, the feet are moving.  I’m still alive, and there’s still hope. 

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
(Matthew 6:21 NLT)

“If you’re not greedy, you will go far, you will live in happiness too, 
Like the oompa – loompa – doompity do.”
(from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl~British children’s author~1916-1990)

“Where’s Goldbug?”  The two year-old was sitting on the edge of the step with the cardboard book open in her hands.  I smiled at the little blonde cutie with the intense look of concentration on her face.  For a moment, my mind went backwards about twenty-five years when the little blonde cutie holding that same book and uttering those very same words was her mother, or just as often, her uncle.  The book is by Richard Scarry, who has written many children’s books, each of them a joy to the eye for the child in each of us.  The particular book I refer to, though, has what I call a hook, meaning that there is one certain thing which captures the children and keeps them coming back again and again.

The artist has depicted all sorts of automobiles and trucks, both fanciful and real, and drawn them into a fun story wherein one reckless driver, Dingo Dog, is chased through the pages by the police officer, Officer Flossie.  I’m not sure if any of the children in my family (even the grown-up ones) could tell you what the plot is.  Each and every time they open up the book, the search is on.  You see, in every scene in the book there is a little character hidden, always in a different vehicle.  He is introduced simply as Goldbug and he is just that…a tiny gold bug.  On one page, he might be hiding in a car being towed away, eyes and whiskers barely visible in the side window.  Flip over the page and he is in his own tiny car, dwarfed by the big fire engines and buses, racing along so close to the ground that he is hardly to be found at all.  Goldbug is by far the tiniest character in the book, actually not playing a part in the plot at all.  He is mentioned a time or two, to remind the kids to keep looking for him.  They don’t need the reminder.

As I said, I’m not sure the kids in my life could tell you much of the plot.  I can’t either.  Whenever the book is in my hands, I’m surrounded by children, all of them vying to be the first to find the insignificant and imaginary little bug.  As soon as he is located and his whereabouts shouted out with excessive pointing and laughter, it is time to be on our way to the next page immediately.  We don’t read the text, don’t take time to examine the interesting-looking vehicles, like the Pickle Truck (a huge pickle-shaped thing) or the Alligator Car (yep, looks just like one); we must instantly flip forward to the following page, once more scanning the windows, the truck beds, or the convertibles for the by-now familiar shape and color.  “There’s Goldbug!”  I’m as anxious as they are to find him and claim the glory of yelling out the phrase.

I consider the experience I’ve had historically with this book and I can’t help but think that Goldbug is actually a “red herring”.  What’s a red herring, you ask?  The red herring myth was begun way back in the early eighteen-hundreds by a political journalist who related, in print, the story of using a red herring, which was actually just a smoked kipper, to draw hunting dogs off the scent they were following.  He used the term derisively about some fellow reporters who had mistakenly reported the defeat of Napoleon in a battle.  The problem is that the story of using the smoked kipper, the red herring, to train hunting dogs is itself false.  No such training method has ever been practiced.  It would seem then, that the red herring is itself a red herring.  Go figure.

The search for Goldbug seems to me to be exactly like the proverbial red herring which draws the juvenile reader (and occasionally, a more mature one) away from the plot of the story, keeping all of us from learning the lesson the author intended and frequently preventing us from even admiring the artist’s craft.  I wonder if that’s not just a little more like real life than we care to admit.  We are so easily drawn away from the pursuit of our goals and dreams, to follow shadows and imaginary prizes.  We have a destination, a purpose, and a plan to get there, but along the way the billboards point to exciting side shows and distractions.  “Stop and see the caves!”  “Visit the prehistoric ruins!”  “Eat our huge steak dinner in an hour, and it’s FREE!”  Enough distractions and stops, and we have forgotten why we started the journey in the first place.  We begin to believe that the side shows are the actual destination, the ultimate goal.  I’m confident that the Author has loftier plans and goals for us, if we’ll just read the rest of the book and keep moving.

The Goldbug search will continue in the years to come for the kids in our house.  I will encourage it.  In real life however, it is to be hoped that Officer Flossie will catch that reckless driver, Dingo Dog, and bring him to justice.  There are places we need to go!

I’ve got my Pickle truck polished up and ready to get me there.  Let’s see if we can keep on the right track together, moving on up the road. 

“Then Hopeful groaned in himself, saying, “Oh, that I had kept on my way!”
Christian:  “Who could have thought that this path should have led us out of the way?”
(In the castle of the Giant Despair from “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan~1628-1688)

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
(Will Rogers ~American humorist~1879-1935)

“Mister Whitmore, that piano you sold me won’t play.  You’re going to fix it, aren’t you?”  The exasperated voice at the other end of the phone line proved to belong to a youngish mom who had purchased the used piano from me just months prior to her terse call.  I didn’t bother to correct her use of the wrong name, since I’ve long ago learned to overlook that all too common mistake.  I’ve also found that pointing out errors doesn’t help to smooth ruffled feathers, either.  I asked her a few questions to try and ascertain the problem, but her answers led to more confusion than before.  She told me that the piano had worked fine at first, but that one by one, the keys had stopped working.  When they were depressed, there was a clicking noise and then they wouldn’t go on down to activate the notes.  I knew that sometimes the key bed of a piano could shift because of changes in humidity, but it didn’t make sense that it would happen one or two keys at a time, until most of them were unusable.  It was certainly a poser.  “This is not my problem, it’s your problem!  You sold us a piano that doesn’t work right!”  I assured the out-of-sorts customer that we would indeed rectify the situation for her and told her to expect our technician soon.

I gave the real Mister Whitmore a call and asked him to go out and look at the piano for me.  The Lovely Lady’s father had tuned and regulated pianos for almost fifty years by then.  I was sure that he could find the source of the problem quickly for me.  He chuckled as he heard my description of the issue and told me that he didn’t want to speculate, but he was pretty confident he knew what was going on.  A time was set up to visit the ailing instrument and I awaited his verdict.  The afternoon of his appointment, I was anxious to hear his report.  It was frustrating when he came into the music store, still chuckling.  I hoped that he hadn’t annoyed my customer by making light of her problem, but my fears were for naught.

“Well, all it took to solve the mystery was a little sense,” the old joker quipped.  I didn’t get the joke, so he explained.  It seems that, when the piano keys were removed, between each key was at least one penny…two or more between some of them.  There were a couple of young boys who lived in the house and they had found that the pennies from their piggy bank fit nicely between the ivory keys on the new piece of furniture. They egged each other on until they had no more pennies left in their banks.  Then, every time they were handed another penny or two, they made a deposit.  That explained the clicking sound, as well as what was keeping the keys from being depressed.  Pennies!  Worthless little discs of copper clad zinc were keeping that thousand dollar piano from working at all! 

I hadn’t thought about the episode for awhile.  Then today, I received an email from my amplifier technician.  He informed me that he couldn’t make a repair on a particular guitar amplifier.  The customer would need to pick it up and either replace the unit or get a new power supply and integrated circuit board.  I asked what had caused such extensive damage to the amplifier.  His answer?  A penny had been dropped down through the top of the amplifier case and had fallen across the high voltage circuit, shorting it out, along with several other components.  A four hundred dollar amplifier – ruined because of one single penny!

As I think about the incongruity of the situation, I’m reminded that most of our lives are like that.  The tiny, insignificant events that occur almost daily seem to control and direct the majority of our actions and feelings.  Oh, I’m aware that many of us have huge events which also affect our existence, but somehow, we seem to understand the magnitude of these episodes and do our best to cope effectively with them.  The little things now…those, we don’t attach nearly as much importance to and consequently, we are derailed by the most minor of occurrences.

I remember how, as kids, we used to put pennies on the railroad tracks, the common belief being that if a train were stopped, it couldn’t roll again if the penny were right under its wheels.  Failing that, we would get a wonderful smashed penny anyway, so it was a win-win for us.  The myth has proved to be wrong, but we liked the idea of a great big locomotive being stymied by a tiny, thin penny.  It would seem that what has been shown to be untrue for those inanimate machines, is actually accurate for the living, breathing human beings.

I’ve seen marriages which have fallen apart, piece by piece; destroyed by tiny issues piled, one upon another, until the two parties involved could see no way to resolve the problems.  Just as with the pennies in the keyboard of that piano, they waited until the music stopped completely to look for answers and by then, it was too late.  Churches can (and have) split apart over the most idiotic things (carpet color springs to mind);  businesses fail most often because of a preponderance of small blunders and not any one large event.  You see, a sense of urgency drives us to deal with the large problems immediately.  The small issues seem to present no real danger and are left to fester and eat away at the foundations, eventually leading to complete disaster.

I’ve said before that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff.  I think maybe we should at least address it.  As it turns out, over time, pennies can actually cause more problems than dollars.

I may think twice before offering my “two cents’ worth” the next time.  How about you?  A penny for your thoughts?

“For want of a nail, the horse was lost;
for want of the horse, the rider was lost; 
for want of the rider the battle was lost; 
for want of the battle, the kingdom was lost.  
And, all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”
(Anonymous)

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.”
(Luke 16:10 NLT)

Come!  Listen to the pipe organ – the invitation was made.
Innocently, one would imagine, but in the words was laid
More meaning than could be expressed. 
Pain.  Annoyance.  Boredom.  Distress. 

I’ll go.  I’ll listen to the pipe organ.  I uttered the words. 
And reckoned that the sentence could be endured. 
It must be possible; Yes, it must be so. 
I’ve seen it done and…I can’t say no. 

At the back of the room!  That should be my locus. 
From there, on my snores, there can be no focus. 
But upon entering, I was without choice. 
Front row seats!  I had, clearly, no voice. 

We sat and waited.  Our arrival was premature. 
Perusing the program, one could only infer
That all hope indeed was gone. 
And the early mindset, completely spot on. 

Page after page mentioned organ and choir,
Enough for a week. I’d hoped for an hour. 
If those weren’t enough a grimace to bring,
In between each, the crowd had to sing. 

When dread was worst, the program commenced. 
My confusion did too.  A shift in spirit, I sensed. 
With every note, the heart seemed to take flight. 
Moments passed, darkest mood turned to light! 

Prelude and Fugue by Bach, led the charge. 
Up to the heights we stormed, but soon tears too large
To be hidden, coursed down from my eyes. 
I repent.  My words were all lies. 

No pain, but rapture.  Nothing there to annoy. 
No boredom was found.  No distress, but more joy
Was present than I ever had guessed. 
I don’t think I err when I say we were blessed.

In surprising places His joy can be found. 
It surely will be in the next place I’m bound. 
I borrow trouble. It ties me in knots
And keeps me from seeing the blessings I’ve got. 
 
Beauty lies around us.  It requires that we stop
And listen and feel.  And, sometimes shut up. 
The heart, when unfettered may actually soar
To heaven, or perhaps at least, to its shore. 

I’m back on the ground at last, for the night. 
If invited again, I think I just might
Stay home.  I’m not sure that I’m made
To soar to the heights, more than once a decade.

“…But now bring me a musician.” And when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him.
(2 Kings 3:15 ESV)

“Music hath charms to sooth the savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.”
(William Congreve~English playwright and poet~1670-1729)

The scrawny kid in the goofy cowboy boots was confused.  That in itself was not an unusual situation, but this was different.  He had gotten home without the horn coming along with him!  How was that possible?  He was sure he had carried it out to the portico where all the bus riders waited for the big yellow transport vehicles.  He definitely remembered picking it up at the band room and lugging the ugly gray case all the way through the halls.  He had a vivid picture in his mind of setting it down at the end of the concrete bench.  After that, the memory got a little fuzzy.  Maybe it was because he had spent the rest of his waiting time trying to impress Liz.  Today was record day in English class and he had brought his Three Dog Night LP (or maybe it was his brother’s…the memory fails on some points).  The pretty young thing was a little impressed with that and wanted to know what other albums he had at home.  Sadly, it turned out that The Carpenters and Neil Diamond didn’t help him at all with her. He was attempting to recover from that little set back when Bus #23 arrived.  Grabbing his books, the skinny boy ran to catch his ride.  It stopped quite a ways down the lane from where the failed conquest had taken place.  The race to the bus felt just like the retreat from defeat that it was.

That all seemed irrelevant now, since he was standing in his living room at home, forlorn and wondering where his horn was.  Well, technically it wasn’t his.  The band loaned horns such as this, due to the high cost of purchasing the expensive instruments, which would have cost something around fifteen hundred dollars when new.  The one whose location he was desperately casting about to recall wasn’t anything close to new, but that wouldn’t make any difference to Mr. Zook, his band director.  He had been assigned that horn and would be expected to have it in band class tomorrow!  The worried young man could just envision sitting on the bench outside the band room waiting….Hold on!  That was it!  He had left it sitting at the end of the concrete bench under the bus portico at school when he ran for the bus at the last minute! 

“Mom….”  A quick ride to the school was no help.  The horn wasn’t there.  Gone.  Someone had picked it up.  It was either stolen or in the possession of someone who would get it back to the band room.  Unfortunately, time would reveal that the former was the case.  The horn had disappeared…for good, it seemed.

Calls were made.  Reports were filed.  On-duty teachers were asked if they had observed anything.  Day after interminable day, for over a week, the lanky kid sat in band class without an instrument, feeling the glare of the band director.  Mr. Zook had a mean glare, too!  No one wanted to be in his bad graces.  This episode was the second time this school year the kid had seen that glare from his band director; the first time being when he had opted to attend an ROTC event rather than an important band marching practice.  The lost horn was strike two.  There might not be an opportunity for the third strike.

Finally one afternoon, after a week and a half of stewing, Mr. Zook called the boy into his office.  The teen was resigned to his fate.  He would be ejected from band and would spend the rest of his school days paying for the missing horn.  The woebegone kid stumbled into the office and stood there, unbelieving.  Right in front of him, under the desk, was his horn case!  Mr. Zook sat, fiddling with a pencil.  “I’m not sure that I can trust you with the horn again,” he began, sternly.  The boy almost didn’t hear his words, he was so ecstatic.  It took a moment for the import of the words to sink in.  Even though the horn was back, he might not be (back, that is).  This wasn’t possible!  He had assumed that his fate was tied to the horn.  If it was gone forever, so was he.  It was back where it belonged, so, surely he would be also…right?  He stuttered out an objection, but Mr. Zook went on.  “You haven’t lived up to my expectations so far.  How do I know you’ll do any better?”  At that moment, nothing seemed more important in the young man’s thoughts than the idea that he had to be in band!  He still had no real answer, but he blurted out, “I’ll try my best,” and then waited for the pronouncement of his doom.   The only reply came as Mr. Zook hooked the horn case with his foot and shoved it across the concrete floor to him.  “Oh, go home and practice!”  was all the gruff director said.  And, with that, the ordeal was over.

But, was it?  As with many memories which time cannot erase, this one keeps being replayed periodically.  You see, there is a bigger lesson, as there frequently is in these little disasters we encounter throughout our lives.  One begins to realize that, as with the missing horn, the tools we use to function throughout life are not ours, but are simply on loan.  You only have to look at those who once were gifted, but have lost those assets for one reason or another, to understand.  Cheerleaders are stricken with illness and confined to wheelchairs; brilliant intellectuals are reduced to babbling confusion when consumed by dementia; talented artists contract Parkinson’s disease and are unable to control their hands, much less their brushes; beauty deserts the aging beauty queen, with many discovering the futility of its subsequent pursuit.  Everything we have in this life is fleeting; here one day and gone the next, often to our dismay.  Carelessness frequently speeds its decay and loss.

The older we grow, the more precious become these giftings, and the less we take them for granted.  I recall with amusement the answer my late father-in-law often gave when asked how he was.  Instead of going into a depressing recital of all his aches and pains, he would often reply with a twinkle in his eye, “Well, I’m able to be up and around, and take nourishment.”  We need to appreciate what is in our hands and use that to the best of our abilities while we are able to wield it.  We guard it, yes.  We hone our skills, certainly.  But, we also understand that there are seasons in life for everything, and many talents are ours only for that season.

Don’t be distracted by the pretty things, as the skinny boy was; don’t take your eye off of the goal.  Keep that gift near at hand and learn to excel at your craft.  It has been loaned to you and will be required of you.  Eventually, we all have to settle our accounts.  Sooner or later, we’ll hear the Director say, “You haven’t lived up to my expectations.”  Or, he’ll say, “Well done!”  

I know which one I want to hear.  Now, it’s time to go home and practice!

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.”
(James 1:17 ASV)

“Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing, that we see too late the one that is open.”
(Alexander Graham Bell~American inventor~1847-1922)