“I dare you to cross that line!”

The sneaker clad foot of the skinny kid with the burr haircut dragged through the dry soil, creating a wavy line between him and the other neighborhood boys.  It looked like a stand off.

Jaw stuck out, the heavy-set leader of the ragtag gang of boys belligerently stepped right up next to the line, being careful to stay behind it.

He challenged the skinny kid.  “What you gonna do if I cross it?”

The slim loner swallowed hard and stared the challenger down.

“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?”

The big fellow edged his foot toward the line and barely, just barely, stuck the toe of his sandal over.  Looking contentiously at the light-weight on the other side of the squiggly line, he decided to take the bull by the horns.

He stepped across it.

The boys behind him held their breaths.  All eyes were on the skinny kid.

“Well?  What are you gonna do?”

The boy with the short hair looked at his antagonist.  For a moment, it appeared that fists would fly.

But no.

A smile appeared on the boy’s face.  “Ha!  Looks like you’re on my side now.  C’mon.  Let’s play some softball.”

I’m thinking tonight about the boundaries we draw.  For some inexplicable reason, we seem to have a desperate need to draw lines.

In the sand.  In our cars.  Around our homes.  Between countries.  Between people.

The other night, walking alongside the creek downtown, I saw the flashes of lightning in the northwestern sky.  They were still a good ways off, but nonetheless, it appeared that we were due to have a storm roll through soon.

Before I had headed out the door for my (then) moonlit stroll, I looked at the weather report with the Lovely Lady.

She was nonchalant about the possibility of me returning from my walk in a downpour.

“Oh, the rain is all still way up in Kansas.  It’ll be a long time before it arrives.”

Kansas.  That’s miles away.

Years even.

I haven’t been in the state of Kansas for ten years.  Really.  Storms all that far away will take forever to get here.

Yet, less than half an hour later, the clouds were gobbling up the stars overhead and the voltage in the sky was making its way to the ground with disturbing regularity.

Clouds and rain and lightning apparently care even less about boundaries than do boys who have been provoked.  State lines?  Those aren’t barricades to stop the wind and the storm.

The Teacher Himself said it.

“The wind blows where it wants.  You hear it, but don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going.”

I might as well have put up my hand and shouted halt in the midst of a stampeding herd of cattle.  The beautiful harvest moon above was extinguished and the stars disappeared as if they were candles being snuffed out one after another.

I knew when I was defeated.  Hurriedly, my feet beat a path for home and shelter.  Even so, more than a few drops had already landed on my head before I pushed the back door open at last.

Boundaries.  We need them.

Boundaries.  We need to do away with them.

Interesting concept, isn’t it?  Both statements are true.

Some boundaries, we need.

The traffic cop in Brooklyn sets a boundary simply by putting up his hand.  The two-ton masses of steel and plastic skid to a stop and wait impatiently for the boundary to be lifted, so they may be on their way once more.

It is a boundary that is absolutely essential.  The cross-traffic must have safe passage.  The hand of the policeman is all that guarantees access without fear of chaos and destruction.

Do you wonder at the power of that one gloved hand?  Don’t.

It has the power of the government and the people, and God, behind it.

God?

The Apostle wrote the words he was given to share, centuries ago.

“There is no authority, except from God and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.”

It would be an easy thing to get tangled up in discussion about this concept, but there is more to say tonight about boundaries.  I’ll just leave that little rabbit trail alone for now and move on.

Some boundaries should never have been put up in the first place.

The list is endless.  Class divisions are odious, causing envy and anger.  Racial divisions are just as bad, not only dividing us, but putting us at war with each other.  It is a war which cannot be won.

I couldn’t begin to list all the other boundaries my mind jumps to as I write.  The reader will, no doubt, have already begun to add to that list in his/her mind, as well.

From our days of playing in the sand box, we have drawn the imaginary lines.  Those lines have blurred and new ones have been drawn in the sands of the years.  Some will take extraordinary effort to efface; others will only be removed by the sole Power which actually has the authority to draw such lines (and the means with which to enforce them).

I observed some lines being drawn this afternoon as I worked in my store.  The children who blew through the sales floor one after another had only a couple of words for me.

“Hi Grandpa,” was all any of them uttered, as they headed for the back door.

The curious boy, the risk-taker, must have seen something of interest before he hit the door.  I heard the noise of physical objects being moved near the shelves where the band instruments awaiting repair are stored.

The careful one, the obeyer-of-rules, followed close behind.  Within seconds, the boundaries were being set as his authoritative voice laid down the law.

“Mom told us to go straight through.  You’re not doing what she said.”

The little policeman and the lawbreaker stood, at odds with each other–the boundaries reinforced as they bickered.  Then something happened that erased the line completely and instantly.

Mom followed them into the back room.

Silence.

The officious voice stopped in mid-sentence, the indifferent whine of the other boy trailed off, as well.

Before The Authority, all other authority pales.  Differences put aside, both boys wandered out the back door in apparent amity.

The preacher in me wishes to explain all.  I would have my readers miss not a single detail of the message.

The man I am suggests that it is time to leave be.  Wisdom may be found in silence, too.

I am, after all, learning the same lessons.

I seem also to be erasing the same lines in the sand.

And figuring out which ones stay.

This could take awhile.

“And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
(Mark 4:39 ~ KJV)

“‘I like geography best,’ he said, ‘because your mountains & rivers know the secret.  Pay no attention to boundaries.'”
(from Story People by Brian Andreas ~ American author/publisher/technologist)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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She was kind enough to leave a comment about my essay.  I am grateful.  Not many folks think about doing that.  You may do the same if you wish.  The button is down below, just waiting.  It will still be there when you’re finished here.

Did I say I am grateful?

I am.  She remarked on some thoughts she had taken away from the writing.  She even called it interesting.  I had talked about a legacy.  She said she is too busy to make plans for what the future holds.

Seriously.

“…for now I’m too busy living life to question what happens after it is over.”
__________

Our friends left the United States the other day, going to a country near India to start a business.  They have known for a couple of years that they were going and will probably be there for many years to come.

Just the day before the five of them were to leave, they made a few phone calls.  They called the realtor and told her to sell their house.  Next, they called the airline and asked for tickets to fly to their new home within twenty-four hours.  Then, they threw a few things into a suitcase and called their closest friends to tell them goodbye.  They were on the next flight out of the country.

No muss–no fuss.

They didn’t have to plan, didn’t even have to clean the house.

They were too busy for annoying details like that.
__________

If there is anyone who believes that, I’d like to sell them a few hundred shares of American Motors stock.

Our friends are going to a new life!  A new country.  A new business venture.

Their home was sold before they set the date to leave.  They sold and gave away nearly all they owned.

Airline tickets were purchased months before the date of embarking.  Schedules were considered and reconsidered.  Hard decisions had to be made.  There are strict limits to what can be fitted into a suitcase.  They packed and repacked, removing this and throwing away that.

Legal matters had to be attended to.  Governments of foreign countries have different and sometimes difficult regulations.  Taxes and business structures have to be considered and planned carefully.

Letters were written, emails sent and…
__________

I don’t need to go on, do I?

I have said it a number of times before in my writing, so I hope you’ll forgive the repetition.

There is more.

More.

I am absolutely convinced that eternity stretches out ahead of every one of us.  Whether we plan for it or not, every step we take carries us further into that eternity.  One day, we will board the vessel which awaits to take us to the far off land in which we will reside.

The day will come.  It comes to every person.

Decisions are being made–today–whether we believe it or not.  Choices are taken daily which will resound into time immemorial.

Too busy living?

I’m thinking it’s past time to be packing.

“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.”
(Fitzhugh Dodson ~ American Presbyterian minister/child psychologist ~ 1924-1993)

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”
(1 Corinthians 15:19 ~ KJV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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Every year, it’s the same thing.  School starts and the music store is inundated with people, both parents and students, anxious to acquire just the right instrument.  And, even though the process entails a lot more than this one sentence could possibly contain, we manage to achieve the goal–sort of.

But, the week after?  The week after, the parents come back in.  They forgot this accessory or waited to buy that book.  It’s always something.  But, somehow we always seem to get around to the same question.

“My kid says that their band director told them to clean the horn in the bath tub.  Surely that’s not really what we’re supposed to do?”

The consternation is written across the faces of each parent as they contemplate the amount of hard-earned cash they laid down for this instrument.  Now, they’re supposed to just dunk it in the bath tub?

My stock answer the first few years was, “Why not?  You put your kid in the tub every day.  Surely she’s worth more than that horn…”

I don’t say that anymore.  About this time in the school year, most parents have lost their sense of humor.  Give it another month.  Then they’ll be back to normal.

But this week?

This week, I just say, “Yep.  That’s right.  Take the valves out and put the rest of it in the bath tub.  It won’t hurt a thing.  Except for the bath tub.”

The fact is, it really doesn’t hurt the tub.  It’s just that, after the water is drained out, the tub will be filthy.

Filthy!

You think you’ve seen a ring around your tub before?  Not compared to what will be left after your kid washes out a few months’ worth of grime and corrosion from the inside of a brass instrument he or she’s been blowing through.

How well I remember the first time I gave my French Horn a bath after the Lovely Lady and I were married.  She plays the flute.  That dainty little instrument would never survive the bath, so she had no idea what to expect.

And I, sensitive new husband that I was, left the bath tub as it was after the process.

The next morning she prepared for her bath and squealed in disgust as she began to run the water.  It truly was a horrendous mess.

I never left the bath tub in that condition again.  Some lessons take only one go round to stick with you.

But tonight, I’m wondering about another lesson from the drained bath tub.

Yes.  That’s the word I’m looking for.

Drained.

It’s exactly what I’m feeling tonight.  Well, tonight and just about every other night for the last month.  It has been an exhausting few weeks.

I said the words to the Lovely Lady just a day or so ago, after I had answered the front door of my house, to find a customer asking me to open the store on a Sunday afternoon.  We were about to sit down to the table with our family and friends.  The customer desperately needed a solution to a problem by later that evening.  I helped.

All I said to the patient lady who keeps me sane was, “Everybody wants a piece of me.”

She just nodded kindly and suggested that a nap might help.  It did.

I’m thinking about that bath tub again, though.

You know, when the water is still in it, you can’t really see that nasty ring.  Oh, there are horrible little green things floating here and there, but they are dissipated by the amount of liquid.  The water doesn’t look so bad.

The side of the tub doesn’t show any ill effects of the process at all.

Until the tub is drained.

I’ve seen the commercials.  You have too.  Scrubbing Bubbles.  They just fly around, helter-skelter, and the tub is instantly clean.  Would that it were that simple.

Or painless.

Out comes the bathroom cleaner and the brush.  Oh, and one other ingredient, one the Red-headed Lady who raised me always suggested–Elbow grease.  Yep.  Hard work.  A little sweat mixed with the cleaner.

Who knew that being drained was going to make so much more work?  Perhaps I should just leave the water in there.  Surely, the Lovely Lady wouldn’t mind getting into that water so much.  She could just run a little more clean water in and it wouldn’t be all that bad.

Do you remember learning about the Dead Sea in Sunday School?  Do you know why it’s dead?  There are no outlets.  Nothing–absolutely nothing runs out of it.  The water evaporates some, but it never drains.

Never.

Give me a pretty little lake in the hills any day.  Streams and rivulets carry the rain water and the ice melt-off into it in the spring.  More streams, and perhaps a river, run out of the down-hill side.

Constantly emptying.

Constantly being filled.

Drained, but not drained.  Cleaned to become dirty–and then cleaned again.

I think I may have a gunky ring around my insides now.  Time for a few scrubbing bubbles and more cool, clean water.

There is more to be done.

Several people still want a piece of me.

I may be drained right now, but I hear the rain coming…

“Then Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!'”
(1 Kings 18:41 ~ NLT)

“I know it’s hard when you’re up to your armpits in alligators to remember that you came here to drain the swamp.”
(Ronald Reagan ~ U.S. President [1981-89] ~ 1911-2004)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved. 

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I believe in ghosts.

I read those words and wonder what friends will say.  I wonder what my parents would say.  I even wonder what my own children would think.  We didn’t talk about such things at my house as I grew up, nor as my children grew.  It will come as a surprise to all of them to realize that I am a believer in ghosts.

I may need to clarify a bit.

The longer I live, the more I realize that words mean different things to different people.  To some, ghosts are nothing more than a cartoon–Casper and his cohorts floating around and scaring children and being scared by the same children.  Others think of ghosts as the malevolent spirits exposed by movies in recent years, but told about in countless late night fireside sessions throughout the centuries before television.  The ghosts they see are the spirits of cruel men, long dead, sentenced to walk the earth and terrify the living, whom they hate.

Poltergeists and phantoms, along with apparitions, all spring to mind when the word ghost is invoked.  The reader is free to believe in these as he or she wishes.

I have no fear of such things.

The ghosts I believe in are all in my head.  And in my heart.  Still, I talk to them and even listen for their advice.  Oh, they don’t actually speak, but once they did.

Funny, I talked to Wayne and Betty the other night.  I was on one of my nightly running treks and just happened to run past the stone marker that bears their names in the local cemetery.  The ghosts in my head woke up as I passed that marker.  Not because they are walking the earth.  They’re not.

The ghosts in my head are simply the memories I have of folk who have been a part of my life, but are no longer physically with me.

I heard, once again, Betty’s voice as she chided the Lovely Lady and me one day many years ago, before we were married.  The lovely young thing was spending the summer working at a local camp and the separation was too much for a young couple to bear.  We had arranged to meet at the river near the camp, I sitting impatiently on the hood of my yellow Chevy Nova, as she trudged the half mile down a dirt lane.

Reunited, we leaned against the car and, holding each other tight, spoke of empty arms and hours and our love for each other, wishing it could be different.  But, within moments the calls began to echo down the river valley.  Her name was being yelled out.

We were caught!  As Betty approached the car, she was wearing an angry, yet relieved, expression on her face.  She aimed most of her frustration at me, and rightfully so.

It was the summer of the Girl Scout Murders.  Three girls had been murdered in their camp tents less than thirty miles from where we stood, and the murderer was still at large.  There was reason to be fearful and to take extra care.

I will never forget Betty’s voice as she scolded  me.  I was a selfish young man who needed the words that reminded me of my responsibility to others.  It was an embarrassing moment, but one from which a valuable life lesson came.

The other night, as I smiled at the memory (after the initial grimace of guilt had passed) of Betty’s words,  I immediately heard the gravelly voice of Betty’s husband Wayne.

The deacons at my church had been sitting and discussing different projects which needed to be completed, when the aging man spoke up.

“That old door has a crack under it big enough to sling a dead cat through!”

The memory of the words triggers fond thoughts of the laughter we shared many times, but also of the selfless servant this old saint was.  He was willing to dirty his hands on any project and gave of himself liberally.  Whether it was a plumber’s plunger or a carpenter’s hammer in his hand, he worked with a joy that couldn’t be extinguished.

The ghosts talked as I ran on.  Not even the huge spider web I ran through moments later could quiet them down.  Frantically, I wiped the sticky material off of my face and arms, and I thought I heard Wayne laugh again.

It strikes me as I write this that I, too, will be a ghost one day.  So will each of us.  And I don’t mean the kind that haunts old houses and drags chains around, either.  Still, I’m wondering what kind of memories my ghost will evoke in people who might chance to remember me.

We had a conversation about a couple of other ghosts one day recently, after a family dinner.  The mother and son have both passed away within the last few years, leaving behind them an inheritance of arguments and threats, and hate.

The ghost I see is standing on the bank of a river, brandishing a shotgun.  The Doberman dog at her side is growling menacingly as she threatens physical harm if the teenagers in the canoe stop to swim on her property.

The ghost of her son is not any less formidable, as I hear him curse and demean church-going folks.  The arguments were many and ferocious, at times.  Although not one of my personal memories, the story is told of a gun and the same river bank his mother stood on, only there was gunfire on that day.

Ghosts.

The book is shut on the words they can speak.  The last action they can take has been taken and is sealed in memories forever.  Their legacy is complete.

Again, I wonder.

What sort of ghost will I be?  What legacy is to be left behind as the memories of my words and actions are set free on those still remaining after me?

I hear and read the words everywhere.

YOLO!  You only live once, the letters scream out.

They lie.

We may pass this way only once, but the record of our passing remains.

I sit deep in thought, but suddenly I shake off the reverie.  I am alive still.

Not a ghost.  There is time yet to write the dialogue.  Still time to choreograph the dance.  Time to map out the movements of the player.

Not a ghost.

Yet.

“Carve your names on hearts, not tombstones.  A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.”
(Shannon L Alder ~ American writer)

“…it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment.”
(Hebrews 9:27 ~ ESV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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My old friend pushed my door open this morning.  I was glad to see him.  My piano needed his visit as much as I did.  You see, my friend is a piano tuner, trained in the technical art by some of the best in the business, at one of the largest and most respected piano manufacturers in the world.

I sell tools.  That’s it.

Tools.

The children who scramble through my doors on any given day will argue with that description.  Their eyes light up like diamonds as they look around and see the treasures which hang on the walls and stand waiting on the floor.

Toys.

They see toys.  Strings to run fingers over.  Drums to beat on.  Mouthpieces in which to blow.  The cacophony in the toy store is astounding when the children are here.  They don’t care in the slightest about the intended purpose for any of the joyous delights they’ve discovered.

The kids present a dilemma for me.  I love to see them pushing my door open.  I love the look on their expectant faces.  I love the thrill of discovery that springs up new in almost every one of them.

My problem is that I also love to see them pulling the door open to go out.  I love the sigh of relief that I breathe as quiet and calm reign once again.

You see, I don’t sell toys.

I sell tools.

Tools have purposes and correct ways of being wielded.  When the children are here, those purposes and techniques are nowhere to be found.  The noise and banging and blowing, unless harnessed and guided and controlled, tend to overwhelm me.  I am happy to wave a weary goodbye to the young tykes.

Funny thing.  I don’t run a hardware store.  I have a music store.  My walls and shelves (and floor) are covered with musical instruments.

Musical instruments.  Which are tools, not toys.
                   

One hot summer night many years ago, I watched the cabinet maker at work in his shop.  The rough slabs of cherry wood had, one by one, been cut and routed and sanded.  Glued and fitted together, the individual pieces of wood had become beautiful paneled doors, ready to mount to the framework he had also laboriously cut and assembled.

The doors were perfect.  Perfect.  The stain he had sprayed on them a day or two before had only brought out the amazing grain in the wood, the reddish tint accenting the natural beauty that had always been there.  There was a slight gloss which the lacquer finish added; the lights overhead simply drawing attention to the exquisite design, both of the artisan and the Creator.

I said that they were perfect.  They were nearly perfect.  In order for the doors to serve their intended purpose, one thing remained.  They needed hinges to be mounted.  Not just any hinges would do.  They couldn’t just be slapped on, mounted to the surface, detracting from the perfection.  No.  They had to enhance it.  The hinges had to be recessed, becoming one with the doors.

Out came the wood chisel.  I cringed.

The craftsman glanced up at me and smiled.  He may have been remembering the same thing I was;  I don’t know.  I just had an image in my mind from a few days before, when the same man had been helping me with a mechanical repair on my old Chevy automobile.

I had needed to remove a part from under the hood.  It was mounted to the firewall with two screws.  I didn’t have a flat screwdriver handy, but I did have the solution.  I reached into my toolbox and grabbed–the wood chisel.  It was flat on the end.  It fit into the screw’s slot and I twisted.  Eventually, the screw turned and was removed, but not before the blade slipped out of the slot a time or two.

My craftsman friend was astounded.  Not in a good way.

“You just ruined that chisel,”  was all he said.  It was almost as if I had injured him.

I just grunted and stubbornly started on the other screw.  The repair was completed and the car functioned again, but the chisel was indeed, ruined.

That memory was going through my head as I watched the cabinet maker take his razor sharp chisel and cut a perfect mortise for the brass hinge.  Then he cut another and another.  Like the rest of the door, each one was perfect, the hinge butting up against the raised edge of the wood with precision.  A thing of beauty.

The master craftsman wielded the tool with purpose and understanding.

The result was perfection.
                   

Back in my store, the tools hang on the walls and stand on the floor, waiting for master craftsmen or women.

I have heard the result when they are wielded with purpose and understanding.

The music is astounding.

I don’t exaggerate when I tell you there are times I stand and weep at the beauty of the product of such perfectly wielded tools.  I’m not sure the music in heaven will be much sweeter.

You’ve heard it too, haven’t you?

I can’t help but wonder what the result would be if we would ever understand our own place in this world, in creation.  We could be tools in the hands of the Master Craftsman.

Imagine the beauty!  Hear the sweet music!

I look at the reality of the world around me and realize the kids are playing with toys instead.  The chaos and the cacophony of noise as the instruments are wielded by immature and ignorant hands is confusing and deafening.

Surely, we were designed for better things.

Perhaps, I’ve said more than I should.  I think it’s time for rest.

And quiet.

I have more tools to sell tomorrow.

Well it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
(from Gotta Serve Somebody ~ Bob Dylan ~ American singer)

Stop offering the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.  Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have been brought from death to life, and the parts of your body as instruments of righteousness to God.
(Romans 6:13 ~ ISV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.