Give me a chance to catch my breath

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

The problem started about three or four years ago.  Most people I know with this affliction have it when they are children and then it lessens in severity as they get older, but leave it to me to wait until my waning years to acquire an infirmity that I should have outgrown instead of grown into.  I have asthma.  Oh, not the full-blown, struggle to inhale, think you’re going to black out, wheezing asthma, but enough to cause shortness of breath and an annoying tight cough, which can’t be relieved by regular cough medicines.

I’ve got my father to thank for it…well really, his father…come to think of it, I shared it with my son too, so there’s enough paternal blame to go around on this one.  Heredity seems to have played its part here.  My father had to take an early retirement due to respiratory problems brought on by allergens in the workplace.  Long before that, his dad (my Grandpa Phillips) was stricken with emphysema, a lung disease far more serious than my touch of bronchial asthma. 

I thought about Grandpa today.  I had helped the Lovely Lady with a reception for a friend of ours and was carrying boxes out to the car.  The extreme change in temperature from inside the building to the frosty air outside, was enough to bring on another attack and before I knew it, I was straining to breathe.  I felt a kinship with Grandpa that I had never thought about before, as I saw him in my mind’s eye, struggling to breathe from the exertion of walking 10 feet across the room.  He would stop and lean against a table, or chair, or desk, with his chest heaving, the over-developed chest muscles forcing air in and out of the diseased lungs.  I must admit that as a child, I didn’t empathize well.  This was just how he had always been in my memory, and I assumed that it was his own fault.  Grandpa had been a heavy smoker, his brand of choice, filter-less Camels.  A he-man’s cigarette if ever there was one.  But for a person predisposed to breathing issues as seems likely, the habit was a slow killer.  I’m not a smoker and my problem doesn’t begin to approach the gravity of his, but just for a few moments this evening, I felt an empathy, a bond with my Grandpa that I never considered when he was living.  And, I missed him again.

Grandma and Grandpa lived across the street from me when I was a kid.  What a great blessing, to be able to grow up so close to your grandparents that you can run across the street and sit with them on the screened-in front porch, or maybe watch  an episode of “I Love Lucy” or “Gunsmoke” on television with them. Two channels on TV then, with the signal literally coming through the airwaves and being picked up by a pair of “rabbit ears” on top of the tiny black & white set.  Every time an airplane would approach the local airport (we were in the flight path), the static and wavy lines across the screen would interrupt the program.  But the best thing was listening to Grandpa tell stories about people he knew.  He loved to talk–even talked about talking…“So, I says to him, says I, …”, was one of my favorite phrases I heard him use when describing a conversation with someone else.  If I weren’t such a language snob, I would incorporate that into my own speaking.  Maybe it’s best to keep that as a memory instead.  But I think I get my penchant for story-telling from him and, from where I’m standing, that’s not a bad legacy.  The reader is free to agree or not…

The asthma won’t go away, but I carry an inhaler with me when it flares up and a couple of puffs on it usually relieve the symptoms within a minute or two.  I’m not happy to have the problem, but tonight, I’m actually a little grateful for the walk down memory lane.  We’ve all got memories that live in our heads and hearts; some sad, like Grandpa’s ultimately fatal affliction, but also some happy ones too, like my memories of life with him so close.  There are times when I think it would be great if all our memories were like the latter, but I’m reminded of a song I heard as a teenager that reminded us that hardships make us value the good times more; just as we cherish coming home because we had to be away in the first place.  I think memories are often like that, the bittersweet giving way to the heartwarming, actually making the happy occasions seem more bright.

Next week, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving, another of the memory-fraught times of the year for most of us.  I’m going to be remembering my Grandpa’s dinner prayer as we approach this holiday.  “Our Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the many blessings which Thou hast bestowed upon us…”  When I was a boy, it was only remarkable in that the language never changed.  As an aging man, now a grandfather myself, the message of those words has lasted well beyond his mortal years and still resonates today. 

“Many blessings” indeed.

“To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die”
(Thomas Campbell, from his poem “Hallowed Ground”)

“Sticks and stones may break my bones…”

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“…but words will never hurt me.”  We know the children’s rhyme well.  I’ve even discussed the fallacy in an earlier note, with regard to harmful language.  By that, I mean hurtful words, spoken in anger or with hateful intent.  Tonight, my objective is not to continue in that vein, but to explore the other side of how words can be hurtful (at least to people like me). 

I’ve turned into a language purist, a word cop, if you will.  And, I am hurt by words.  I obviously don’t have a huge working vocabulary, so quantity is not the issue.  The issue I speak of is the pain that is caused by the slow death of the English language as we know it.  Every day, I hear some usage of our shared mother tongue (at least for those of us who aren’t first generation Americans) that makes me cringe a little.  And my reference is not just to local idioms.  Those, I hear on a daily basis, since my vocation now encompasses a national clientele, rather than a local one. I do wish that the regional dialects weren’t spoken in such a variety of accents, since it makes information gathering more difficult, but I’m actually expressing my distaste for the abuse of the everyday words which should be our tools, one of our most valued assets. 

I’m constantly reminded of how my demeanor toward offenses against our language has changed through the years.  There was a day when I approached the English language with a cavalier attitude, intending that it should serve me and not the other way around.  I have come to realize, over my lifetime, that we are more the slave to cobbled-up speech, than we are its master.  The misunderstandings, the slights by those more educated, the flat-out errors which occur because of our abuse of the language, require more time and pain to repair and recover from than using the correct words would have in the first place.  Yes, English is a difficult language, but it is our language, and it doesn’t appear that we will see a change in that anytime soon.  We should probably make the effort to achieve mastery over it.

I now find myself concerned with words like “lay” and “lie”, one of the most common usage errors we hear and one which actually plagued me in earlier years.  If you are placing something down, you use the correct form of “lay”.  If you are reclining, “lie” is appropriate  A fairly simple concept, but one that is abused daily, even by some of the most educated folks I know.  And, when I speak, I can “imply” something.  When I listen, I can “infer”, but not vice versa.  “I couldn’t care less” means that I really am not concerned, while “I could care less” means nothing close to what you think it means. 

These are just a few of the examples I hear every day, and they hurt.  Making no comment whatsoever about his political views, I like a phrase that Rush Limbaugh has used in the past (I haven’t listened recently).  “Words mean things,” is his adamant statement and I find myself in total agreement.  Careless use of words diminishes their meaning.  When our method of communication is impaired and devalued, so is our society.  Is it the end of civilization as we know it?  Of course not!  But the lack of  concern for these common tools of every person’s trade demonstrates a carelessness which makes us less sophisticated and less enlightened than our fathers and forefathers, despite our advanced technology.

So, now that you know that I’m a speech Nazi, you may roll your eyes and shrug your shoulders.  Infer what you will from my rant.  I really couldn’t care less, since it’s about bedtime and I’m going to be lying down to rest (under my electric blanket) very soon. 

“Morals and manners will rise or decline with our attention to grammar.”
(Reverend Jason Chamberlain, professor of languages, University of Vermont, 1811)

Incompatibility

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

We had an argument the other night.  I knew it would happen.  The Lovely Lady and I have been married for 32 years, and it was bound to come up sooner or later.  We are amazingly well-suited to be married to each other; She likes the same foods I do (mostly), we like the same kind of music–well, I like it louder than she does, but at least it’s the same music,  and she loves Monday Night Football too (How cool is that?).  Even so, we both knew the storm was coming, but it’s not within our power to avoid it.  Cold weather comes and our major incompatibility will become an item for discussion.  The first night that the bed is really cold when I get under the covers, we both know that the day of reckoning is at hand.

In the warmer months, I can overlook the annoyance. The sheet and coverlet are thrown on my side of the bed every morning, but no matter;  I don’t mind a little extra warmth.  I get into the car after she’s been driving and the vent is blasting cold air straight at my face, a problem remedied with just a flick of the finger.  If it’s too cold in the house during the evening, a walk outside will regulate the inner thermostat.  Fortunately, she tends to be the thrifty one in the family, so I don’t usually have to weather much of an icy environment, since powering the A/C is pricey.  Thus, for most of the year, our incompatibility doesn’t affect our relationship much.  A joke here, a gently barbed quip there, and the discussion is over, for the most part.

But, cold weather…that’s a different issue completely.  As the nights get cooler, we’ll add a blanket here and there for warmth, and the solution works for awhile.  But after a bit, the stack of blankets gets too heavy for the human body to comfortably lie under, and besides that, the bed is frigid when I get into it.  That suits her fine, but I don’t adapt well to cold, nor does my body warm up rapidly, so I shiver and groan with the chill for  some time after arriving in bed.  The antidote, perfectly simple in my estimation, is to pull off all the extra covers, replacing them with our electric blanket and a light thermal blanket.  It is, after all, a dual control blanket, with a control for my side (set to 5 most nights) and one for hers (often, no light to be seen in the dark room at all).  The argument against my obviously rational suggestion, is nothing more than the desire on her part to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible.  My guess is that the change from blankets, which can be thrown off one by one to regulate one’s temperature, to only a single cover which, if thrown off, leaves one completely bereft of any protection at all, is the problem.  You might say it’s an all or nothing situation, so she either suffers under the “stifling” (her term) heavy blanket or shivers without a cover at all.  I must admit that I’m not very sympathetic (and she really is a sweetheart), so the argument is short-lived as always.

I’ll leave here in a few moments, to slide luxuriously under the warm blanket, being careful to stop short of the halfway mark in the bed (Hey, it’s cold over there!).  What opulence, the warmth of a preheated bed, awaiting my entry!  No more quivering in the cold, awaiting the temperature rise that may or may not arrive.  I find in myself a self-indulgence I never suspected, but there is no shame.  Comfort, thy name is electric blanket!

Now, if we could just do something about the crispy bacon issue, I’d be in paradise! 

Choices, choices…

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The days are full of frenetic activity–phones ringing with questions to be answered and orders to be entered, the door jangling every few moments as folks come and go, and in between, the bustle of regaining equilibrium.  There is no time to get ahead of the game, no leisure to take a quiet break with a cup of coffee, so I take quick sips between periods of communication on the phone and entries in the database.  Lunch is a farce, the odd sandwich eaten, inhaled seemingly, between tasks.  I can’t remember when I’ve had an uninterrupted period of time during the workday to sit and dine, ruminating lazily while discussing the day’s schedule or current events.

I’m still trying to decide if this is how I want it, or if it’s just the way things have to be.  A wise friend once reminded me that we do the things that are important to us.  The arguer in me immediately answers with the perpetual “but” and adds reason upon reason why our lives are filled with activity and then, I’m reminded that every one of the activities is the result of our choices.  In our business, choices in products to be sold result in a certain level of customer interaction…hours of operation distribute the customers differently throughout the day…media choices determine the scope of engagement, with one line for the telephone demanding a small amount of time, more lines adding to that, and national toll-free lines multiplying the attention needed exponentially…even the choice (or maybe especially the choice) to utilize the internet as a business medium adds innumerable hours of labor to the already crowded days.

This freedom to choose extends to our personal lives, as well as to our families and friends.  We choose to live in a certain neighborhood, enforcing on us the necessity of keeping a nice yard, trimming the shrubbery, and raking leaves.  Owning our own home, forces the expense of upkeep, paint, and taxes.  Having relationships with family and friends coerces us into social events, birthdays, anniversarys, and other scheduled activities, as well as a certain amount of financial obligation, to say nothing of the emotional commitment.  All of these requirements are the direct and indirect result of those choices.

The beauty of our lives is that we have the option of making these choices every day.  I hear of people who feel trapped by their lives and the regimen that seems to entangle them.  I’ve felt the sense of being cornered more than once myself.  But overarching those feelings and the despair that helplessness can leave in its wake, is the knowledge that we are here by choice.  We could opt, if we wished, to abandon it all, walking away from the whole package, but we’re held here by the fabric of who we are, the totality of what we choose to believe, and life choices we’ve made because of what we believe.  I would submit that this fabric is our integrity and is a blessing and not a burden.

The very word “integrity” comes from the Latin “integritatem”, meaning oneness or whole.  The essence is that of a piece of  fabric, woven together with threads which fit into the pattern, each adding to the strength and beauty of the whole, until you have the completed product, the cloth.  Each choice we make is a thread which adds to the complete fabric, good choice upon good choice, decisions made with our intellect and heart, daily adding to the integrity of a life well lived.

We could choose to tear up the fabric and start over.  It’s been done many times.  But the result is chaos and pandemonium, not only for the one tearing up, but for those who have chosen to be a part of his or her life.  Our life choices always affect more than just ourselves, it’s impossible to live in a sealed vacuum.  We almost certainly will never know how many people depend on us and our availability, our steadfastness.  I am hopeful that all of you who chance to read this understand that you are needed and important.  You contribute to the larger fabric, the integrity of your world.  If you decide to drop out, I guarantee you’ll leave a hole.  And, guess what?  Where you leave a hole, there’s no longer integrity and the fabric around will suffer, and strain, and tear.

I’ll take the busyness, the frenetic pace, and the fatigue, thanks!  I look back on the choices, good and bad, the good ones showing as clean, solid lines in the fabric, the poor ones knotted and faded, but all of them making up the whole, the integrity of my life.  I’m not completely happy with it yet,  but I think I can see that it’s a worthwhile project.  And I believe I’ll keep heading the same direction.   My little patch seems to adjoin the patches of some very fine people as I stay the course I’m on.

“…Choose you this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
(Joshua 24:15)

“To live is to choose.  But to choose well, you have to know who you are and what you stand for,where you want to go and why you want to get there.”
(Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, 2001 Nobel Peace Prize winner)

The print’s just fine, thanks!

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“I don’t read fine print,” were the words I read in the email, the second one from this customer that day.  It was the Monday after Thanksgiving and it seemed that it was going to be one of those Mondays.  I had arrived just before 9:00 a.m. to get the coffee made and pull the orders for the day, only to find an email from an irate customer waiting.  It seems that she had placed an order on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, requesting that the package be shipped to her by 3-day delivery.  Any idiot could count on their fingers and cipher out that three days from Tuesday would be Friday.  Yet, her package wasn’t scheduled to be delivered until Tuesday.  How is that possible?  “PLEASE REFUND MY MONEY!”, screamed the last line in the missive.

I politely replied to her email and after offering a solution which should have been acceptable, suggested that it might have been helpful, had she read the “policy page” as instructed, before selecting expedited shipping for her order.  The policy for the shipping company explained that there would be no deliveries on Thanksgiving or the Friday after, and those days would not count in the days-in-transit count.  It all made perfect sense to me, but the reply you see above was all that was forthcoming.  Don’t read fine print!?  How can you not read the fine print?  Life is precarious enough without encouraging problems.  Surely, there are no ignorant thrill-seekers left in this world who don’t read all the instructions before pushing the “make payment” key.  Don’t they know the tangled mess they make of the orderly systems we have in place to keep the wheels of commerce moving?  Fine print is the lubricant of the whole enterprise!  

Truth be told, the print wasn’t any smaller than that on the rest of the page, but let’s not argue about semantics.  She couldn’t be bothered.  And, it was obvious that the fault lay with us, not with her.  A phone conversation with her later in the day made clear that we were not going to ameliorate the problem to her satisfaction any time in this century.  We offered a full refund, including the purchase price of the product, as well as giving her the item to keep, but still she could not be mollified.  At wit’s end, I finally suggested that possibly we were not the organization with which she should be shopping for her music, since we obviously weren’t capable of performing up to her standards.  As you might imagine, my last suggestion wasn’t made without a fair amount of frustration (and maybe a little sarcasm) on my part, nor was it met with quiescence on her part.  Regardless, we went our separate ways, each certain of the merit of our own position, and each not having achieved our goal.

I hate unfinished business.  I want every customer to feel that she or he has gotten everything they have paid for and then some.  I also want everybody to like me, although by now, I’m convinced that this goal is impossible to meet.  Sometimes, our objectives are unattainable, our sights set just too high.  But still, it’s very difficult for me not to put this one in the loss column, hard not to say that I failed.  I look at the facts and know that I did all I could, but a bad result has to be tallied somehow, so I call it a loss.  Fortunately, as I count them up, the win column is still weighted heavily, but I wish that all of the occurrences which have made their mark in the loss column could be completely erased. 

“Hey, Paul!  This is John in Atlanta.  You know, I got a bad CD last week.”  The cheerful voice belies the words.  John isn’t angry, doesn’t want an apology.  He knows us by now and he’s confident that we’ll get a good product sent right out to him.  As a matter of fact, he wants to order five other items while he’s got me on the phone.  “You guys always treat me right.  Fast delivery and always there to help me when I need it.  Can’t ask for better than that!”  Wouldn’t it be nice if I could get him to call the earlier customer and help her to see what a nice guy I really am?  Oh well, that’s not the way it works, but man, do I appreciate customers who are such an encouragement!

It would be easy to get discouraged about the failures, but we constantly receive reassurance from customers.  A note here about the great service, a phone call there about how fast the product arrived, a new customer who tells me they contacted us because they received a glowing endorsement from a friend; all of these help to give the impetus to keep doing what we do.  The funny thing is, the bad experiences also help us to do that.  We keep plugging away, because we are convinced that we can do better.  We’ll adjust the fine print, maybe even insert great big red arrows to point the way to it, but we’ll try harder and keep as many marks in the win column as we can. 

It would be easy to focus on those marks in the loss column.  When we contemplate them, it does seem that they are written in much darker pencil than the others are.  The truth is, we just need to focus on the goal.  Looking back magnifies the failures, but moving ahead puts them in perspective and motivates us to transcend the past. I like what Tom Krause, a motivational speaker, has to say on the subject.  “There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them.”

“Success is falling nine times, and getting up ten.”
(Jon Bon Jovi, American rock musician)

Hardhead in the Boat

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

Mr. Sweeney worked with my dad at the Post Office, but I couldn’t tell you what he did there.  All I knew was that he had invited my brothers and me to go fishing with him on Saturday.  On a real boat!  When you’re 8 or 9 years old and get invited to do that, you feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven.  Oh, the anticipation!  The days of that long week before the fishing excursion just dragged by.  Could it only be Wednesday today?  I know it must be Friday already.  Will this week never end? 

But Saturday finally arrived and we were up well before dawn.  The trip across town to Mr. Sweeney’s house was quick, and we loaded our little Zebco rods and reels into the trunk and headed over to the Arroyo Colorado, some 35 or 40 miles away.  This waterway, which in some places follows the ancient riverbed of the Rio Grande and joins the Gulf of Mexico a few more miles to the east, is a deep, saltwater channel.  It contained an amazing array of fish species, from flounder, to trout, to redfish, and even a few lesser known species thrown in.  I know…I caught a couple of the lesser known ones myself.  The 7 pound sheepshead fish I caught that day is one of the strangest I have had on a hook in my limited fishing experience.  And, up to that time, it was also the largest fish I had caught.  Never mind that it had teeth in it’s mouth fully as big as mine. But, I’m getting ahead of myself…

We pulled into Rio Hondo (in English, the town’s name means “Deep River”) about daybreak and stopped by Mr. Sweeney’s parent’s home.  They had a house on the Arroyo and therefore also had a dock for his boat to be tied up at.  After quick introductions, we were out on the water in the wonderful boat.  I’m guessing it was just a normal bass-boat, but that day, it was a ship for us!  We had never been on the water before, having had to be content with sitting on the bank of rivers and channels to fish.  What a memorable event!  And what fishing!  We caught trout, my oldest brother caught a flounder and almost reeled in one of the strange sheepsheads before the monster bit through his line with those atrocious teeth.  A few moments later, I was able to get mine in the boat!

Throughout the day, however, we kept catching a breed of catfish which Mr. Sweeney referred to as a “hardhead”.  That was actually the name of the species, but he used it in a pejorative manner.  “Oh, those old hardheads,” he would sneer through his gritted teeth.  “Throw him back in.”  It didn’t make sense to us.  We knew catfish were good to eat.  We always tried to catch them when fishing on our own.  So, when I caught a particularly nice one, probably about two pounds, I waited until our benefactor was helping one of my brothers with an equipment problem and sneaked the catfish onto the stringer to take home.  I was to regret this action very soon.

Toward mid-afternoon, we decided we had had enough fishing and headed back for the house.  When we pulled up to the dock, the elder Mr. Sweeney took our stringer and started pulling the fish off to dress and fillet them.  I thought nothing of it, until all of the sudden, he let out a yell and had his fingers to his mouth in a second, sucking on the bleeding puncture wound in one of them.  Turns out, the hardhead has a particularly bad habit of spiking his attackers with his long, sharp dorsal fin.  Not only that, but the species has a mild poison which makes the wound redden and swell up.  It’s not anything close to fatal, but is very painful.  He looked at us boys with an accusatory stare and demanded, “Which one of you put that worthless old hardhead on there?”  Well, I had to face the music, which was thankfully not severe for his part, just a very terse comment about doing what you’re told to do.  I have to admit, I berated myself a whole lot more internally than he did aloud.  I knew what I had done was stupid.  It was also selfish and even a little dishonest.  Actually, to this day, I feel bad about hurting that kind old man, now long dead.  As I’ve said here before, some stupid actions stay with us a lifetime.  I guess, you could say that the catfish wasn’t the only “hard head” in the boat that day!

Why is it that we can’t be content to accept that some things need to be done differently than we think best?  When we’ve got the expert in the boat with us, doesn’t it make sense to follow his lead?  My first time out on the boat, and I thought I had the savvy to know better than a life-long fisherman what fish would be good to keep.  I sincerely wish that this were the only time I made a stupid decision in the same way, but that certainly isn’t the case.  I am a lifelong slow learner, needing to find out the hard way about most of life’s pitfalls.  I’m pretty sure that it’s only by the grace of God, that I wasn’t maimed or killed as a child, with some of the stupid stunts I pulled.  The “hard head” description still fits today.

Thank God, that His patience with us outlasts our foolishness!  He keeps taking us out in His boat, instructing us, knowing that we’ll be disobedient and selfish, but regardless, He keeps teaching and encouraging.  Even at my age, I’m cognizant of my need for His patience day after day, through mistake after senseless mistake.  I’m hoping that one day, I’ll look up and realize that I’ve finally learned my last hard lesson, but I’m pretty sure that’s the day I’ll be in heaven.  I guess in a way, that’s what we mean when we say, “Live and Learn”!

“You’re born, you die, and in between, you make a lot of mistakes.“
(Anonymous)

Cash is Not a Collectible

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

“First of all, Mr. Phillips, let me make clear that I am not authorized to sell you anything… Blah… Blah… Blah… so before we wrap up, do you think you’d be interested in investing in silver and gold mining today?”  I informed the young person on the phone that all the money I had to invest was wrapped up in my business, but thanks for the invitation, goodbye.  It wasn’t quite the whole truth, but by and large, I have presumed for many years, that it was in my (and my family’s) best interest that the music store not go belly up, so yes, we’ve sacrificed here and there to keep it solvent.  Consequently, there’s not much of a financial portfolio to boast about.

I’m not complaining, mind you.  Once in awhile a wide-eyed kid will wander in, gaze at all the instruments scattered around, and say earnestly, “Wow! You must be rich!”  Well, of course, I am rich, but not in the way their naive intellect understands.  I figured out long ago that I was in the wrong line of work if I was expecting cash to flow like water into my bank account.  Make no mistake, we’ve been blessed.  We’ve never missed a meal (being too busy to eat doesn’t count), never had a car repossessed, never had to face bankruptcy, so we have much to be thankful for.  But, by the distorted standard of this super-wealthy society in which we live, I’ve never had “money”.  Hence, it’s fortuitous that I haven’t developed the same expectations, so I actually can be rich in spite of my disregard for that standard.

On numerous occasions over the years, folks have made the assumption that my goal in business is to achieve wealth.  In my conversation with them, I always come back to a metaphor I’m sure I appropriated from someone else early in life.  I believe firmly that money is nothing more or less than a tool, an implement for us to utilize in achieving our goals.  The complete lunacy of making the goal simply acquiring money  should be obvious, but for many it is not.  If you’re a carpenter, you only need one hammer for the job you’re doing.   True, there are different hammers for various tasks, tack hammers, framing hammers, ball pein hammers,  sledge hammers, etc., and the tradesman would make sure that he had one good quality hammer for each task, but not more than that.  No carpenter I know has a house full of hammers.  I have known some tool-collectors who had a room full of tools, but they can’t use them.  Ask that collector if you can borrow his antique claw-hammer to pull some bent nails and see if his room full of tools is of any use for your task. 

Why do we honor the wealthy, the tool-collectors in our culture?  The tools they hold onto so tightly could achieve unfathomable good if freed to work as they were intended.  To be clear, I am not a socialist, not even an egalitarian.  I abhor government-coerced equity in goods and wealth, but I love it when those who have previously held tightly to their tools open their hearts and hands and let the tools work as they were intended.  It doesn’t happen often enough, but what a joy to see the miser become the benefactor.  It evidently is a difficult and painful transition, so not many make the journey, but it does occur.

So, no huge nest-egg, no fat stock portfolio, not even a mattress full of cash.  How then, could  I possibly consider myself rich?  Jesus told us that where we keep our treasure, that’s where our heart will be.  My true wealth lies in my faith, my family and friends, and in my mission.  Are you seeking true security?   You won’t find it in the alarms and steel walls of the bank’s coffers, but the grace of God through Jesus is certified, fail-proof security.  And, how can any man be poor who has a loving family and caring friends, with all the benefits and responsibilities that accompany them?  And, if my mission is to love God completely, and love others as I do myself, I’m fairly sure that I will never lack for opportunities to fulfill that mission.

The days are teeming with the wealth of His gifts and my cup is full to overflowing.  No hoarding hammers allowed!

“The rod of Moses became the rod of God! 
And with the rod of God, strike the rocks and the waters will come. 
Yes, with the rod of God, to part the waters of a sea; 
And, with the rod of God, you will strike Pharaoh dead. 
With the rod of God, you will set My people free. 

And so what do you hold in your hands this day? 
To what or to whom are you bound? 
Are you willing to give it to God right now, right now? 
Give it up, let it go, throw it down, down, throw it down.”

(from “Moses” by Ken Medema ~ Christian vocalist and songwriter)

The Face Rings A Bell

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

It doesn’t happen every time I look at that clock, but once in awhile, as it chimes the hour or half hour, I’m taken back almost twenty years to the day we acquired it.  I remember parts of that trip to Dallas well.  It was late July and our old brown Toyota didn’t have a working air conditioner.  Talk about a pressure cooker!

Everyone in the family was glad that it was one of those days when we were in and out of the car continuously, since out of the car meant in an air conditioned building, most of them pawn shops.  Back then, we made it a practice in the summertime to go to a big city or two and purchase as many reasonably priced band instruments as possible for repair and resale.  A successful band season at the start of school meant the difference between losing money for the year and showing a profit.  Although the kids got tired of the process long before we quit for the day, they had their own things that they were searching for; she needed a new pair of inline skates (you remember them) and he was hoping for a new game for the Nintendo console (yeah, old school man!). We might find any of the items we were seeking in the abundance of hock shops in the great metropolis of Dallas.

The pawn shops were in a seedy part of town, with bars and even strip clubs nearby, but we paid them no attention.  We were pretty sure that no one would mistake us for persons of means.  The old flivver helped and we certainly didn’t draw any attention to ourselves, with our WalMart clothes and lack of bling.  Going on our merry way, we picked up the old antique kitchen clock at one of the stops for a very reasonable price.  It didn’t run, but we were sure we knew someone who could remedy that, so the money changed hands.  Just up the street, was a convenience store.  The car needed gas and we needed something cool to drink, so we stopped.

Those two needs taken care of, we started out of the parking lot, only to see a woman walking around the corner.  All it took was a glance to note the bleached hair, heavy make-up, skin tight clothes, and surgery enhanced body parts.  The distinctive wiggle in the walk completed the story and left no doubt as to the advertisement.  My Lovely Lady and I exchanged glances, probably raised the eyebrows a bit, but uttered not a word.  I’m sure we both thought, “Perhaps they couldn’t see that from the back seat and we won’t have any embarrassing questions.”  And so it seemed to be, since no questions were forthcoming, nor was any mention of the spectacle made.  We breathed easier, thinking that we had made a clean getaway.

Oh, the foolish delusions of parents!  We had completed our business in Dallas, spent the night in a motel, and  were on the road home the next day, when the little girl in the back seat, out of the blue, piped up with her question,  “Why was that lady dressed like that?”   Never mind that 24 hours had passed.  Neither one of us had to stop to think.  We knew instantly to whom she was referring.  Of course, we gave her the appropriate amount of information for the age she was, but we still laugh about the incident almost 20 years later.

Do kids notice things that happen on the periphery of their world?  You betcha!  All the time!  My kids bring up events today which I was certain they weren’t aware of at the time, or thought, without doubt that they had forgotten.  It seems that no event was safe from observation and many of these memories, our kids will carry with them all of their lives.  I know I have vivid memories from my childhood, fifty years ago, that I’m sure my parents wish I would have never seen and especially not remembered.  All of this is to say, the old adage, “Be careful little eyes, what you see,” is not idle talk.  They see what you see, but we need to help them to understand right and wrong, good and bad.  It makes a lot more sense for us to talk with them about what we see together, about occurrences we share.  If we don’t, it’s a pretty sure bet that they’ll talk with someone else about it, usually someone their age with incorrect and incomplete information.

One of the other memorable (for me) happenings from the aforementioned venture occurred outside the same shop in which we purchased the old clock.  A fellow approached me as I placed the clock in the trunk, offering to sell me some food stamps at well below face value.  I declined, knowing that there were only two reasons to sell items which were mediums of exchange, such as food stamps, the first of which was that they were stolen, a distinct possibility, or the second reason, which was that they couldn’t be used to purchase the goods or services which the gentlemen wished to acquire.   A quick look around at the bars and dives gave a pretty good indication of his motivation.  After declining his offer, I suggested that his family might make good use of the food stamps.  “Those are for poor folks!  We don’t use them!” came his injured reply.  My sincere hope is that his children don’t have hunger to add to the list of vivid memories which they have carried all of their lives.  The memory for me is that the clock now sits on a sideboard in our dining room, a constant reminder to be sure to nourish both my family’s physical and spiritual needs.
 
Paul the Apostle  encouraged us to “Redeem the time, because the days are evil.”  Let’s make the most of the timely opportunities we are granted daily by a gracious Creator!

“Carpe Diem!” 
(Seize the Day!)

Cleanup in Aisle Three!

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Have you done anything stupid recently?  Yeah, me too…‘This cocoa isn’t hot!  I’ll have to heat it up again.”  The words were spoken with a little disgust, but also with confidence.  I have become a believer in modern appliances and the microwave oven is one of the most revolutionary advances in helping lazy men that I am aware of.   For instance, this time I knew that placing the mug back in the microwave for a minute would remedy the problem.   Lukewarm cocoa?  No problem!  Well, maybe a small one.  You see, I had already placed those wonderful little marshmallows on the top and I didn’t bother to remove them for the reheating process.  Not a good decision….

Okay, not a disaster, not even close to a calamity, but still an annoyance, with most of the acrimony aimed at myself.  The Lovely Lady had even warned me, “Maybe not a great idea…”, but I thought that if it had been a really bad idea, she would have told me to stop, so the hint swooshed right over my head.  Wait!  Do you think I could blame this mess on her?  Was it, in fact, her fault and not mine at all?

No, I had only myself to blame.  I tend to do that, though.  You know, just blunder through life.  Good advice abounds, but my 50-some year old brain still reacts with the two year old attitude, “I can do it myself!”  How is it possible that after all these years of living on this earth, I still don’t have the reasoning ability to perceive a good suggestion when I hear it?  I like to say that I have perseverance, but I think it’s actually just good old-fashioned stubbornness.  I even used to think that it was a family trait which was passed on to me from my father, but I see it in evidence everywhere I look.  Yeah, Dad is stubborn, but it’s a quality that most of us share.  It just demonstrates itself in different ways.

I watch my grandchildren, old enough to reason, but still young enough to think the world revolves around them, throw tantrums, simply because they’ve been asked to accomplish a task they’ve done numerous times before.  The frustration for me is that in their completely irrational actions, I see myself.  Oh, no screaming, no tears, not even any head-butting the back of the seat I’m sitting on, but I know beyond any shadow of doubt that I throw my tantrums too, just in a much more sophisticated manner.  I get what I want with manipulation, deliberation, and rationalization, but I get my way.  This, in spite of the knowledge I have that others around me have my best interest at heart.

You see, it’s in our nature to want to do things our way.  It has been so from the beginning of recorded history, commencing with the parents of the human race, and continuing down without interruption (except once) since then.  I’m just thankful that we have second, and third, and even fourth chances.  Our Father’s grace is inexhaustible, unlike our own as parents.  A friend passed on an encouraging message today which used the phrase “…guiltless be your heart.”  I know my heart and “guiltless” doesn’t describe it.  Thanks to God though, “forgiven” does.  My stubbornness and selfishness are covered.  The messes I’ve made have all been cleaned up.   Tomorrow will be a new day for me to experience His fresh blessings and renewed opportunities.  And, not only for me, but just as much for you too.

Let’s make a start together.  Oh, and though you’ll probably be tempted to try it yourself, the marshmallows in the microwave?  Probably not a great idea.  You know, what she said…

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day, as if nothing had yet been done”
(C. S. Lewis)

Choked Up

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“Too bad that guy can’t sing very well at all,”  came the lightly sarcastic comment from the Lovely Lady today as the CD version of David Phelps’ “Nessun Dorma” came to an end.  Setting the table with my back to her, I couldn’t make a reply, since I was afraid that I would embarrass myself by crying as I spoke.  I’ve always been like that.  Music evokes emotion that I don’t know is inside me.  I can watch a horribly sad scene in a movie without the slightest hint of discomfort, but add a couple of violins and I have to surreptitiously wipe the tears away, when I think no one is watching.  I hear Chris Rice’s “Untitled Hymn” on the car radio and have to pull over to avoid causing an accident. 

The scene was repeated this evening, as I sat at the computer, checking my emails for the day.  A friend had sent a link to a video of a recent incident at the Philadelphia Macy’s store.  The event was described as a “Random Act Of Culture” (click on the link to watch it yourself).  As the huge Wanamaker pipe organ roared out, 650 individuals from the Opera Company of Philadelphia and a number of other organizations gathered in the central atrium and broke into the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah”.  The Lovely Lady heard the music and asked me why I was listening to that particular song (it’s not Christmas yet, you know) and again, I couldn’t answer for fear of my voice cracking.  

What is it about music that makes an ordinarily almost-sane man weep like a child?  How is it that random notes, which were arranged together and coupled with words and written on a page two hundred fifty years ago, can have the power today to move huge groups of people to spontaneous demonstrations of exultation, when performed by talented musicians?  I will freely admit that, after a lifetime of making music and being around musicians, I still have no idea what causes this phenomenon.  And, I’m not sure that I want to know.

I understand a fair amount about chord construction, key signatures, and rhythm.  We call this theory, and maybe there’s a reason it’s called that (beyond the obvious).  A quick check of Google sources will demonstrate that all the scientific  investigation up to the present has not been able to find any answer as to why we are moved emotionally when we hear different types of music.  I can’t speak categorically, but my suspicion is that they won’t ever be able to answer that question.  There are just some things that can’t be contained in a formula, can’t actually be held in your hand, but they just are.

Most of the time I spend at my untidy desk, I’m listening to music.  I’m moved by it, inspired by it, and sometimes, my work comes to a screeching halt as I am captivated by it.  While much of the beauty of life is visual;  Gorgeous, awe-inspiring mountain crags, or the white sands and roaring, roiling surf of the seashore, or the majesty of sprawling, verdant forests, I am delighted to know that we can travel in our spirits to a beautiful, enchanted place without ever leaving our drab, dingy workplaces.  We are moved by the timeless grace of one of God’s best gifts to mankind, the melodies and harmonies, both instrumental and vocal, that make up what we so simply call music.  Would that all art was so simple, yet so eloquent.

Oh, and if you tell the Lovely Lady that I get all choked up over music, I’ll deny it.  I’ve got to protect my macho image, you know.  She still thinks I’m the strong, silent type, and it might disappoint her to discover that I’m actually sensitive and artsy.  Let’s just keep this to ourselves, okay? 

“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.”
(Plato)