Suffer the Little Children

December 25, 2025December 25, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The Christmas Eve service at our church fellowship was packed tonight. The Lovely Lady and I sat near the front—by design, and not as punishment for a late arrival. She was the pianist for tonight’s carol singing, and needed a chair a short walk from the platform in which to rest for a few moments before returning to the bench facing the big grand piano again.

I arrived just before the beginning of the service, barely in time to hear the beautiful piano duet that served as a prelude to the hour-long service. There was a young couple beside me, with a 2-year-old tyke nearby, chewing on a Belvita cookie. He has learned to break the crunchy cookie crust into pieces, licking the chocolate icing in the center first, before munching the crust between his pearly white teeth.

Again and again, he grins mischievously at me as he takes another bite.

The service is filled with young families such as theirs—and with teenagers who sing out the carols boisterously (and, even a few who stand morosely, mouths closed stubbornly)—and with old gray-hairs who have never missed a Christmas Eve service and aren’t about to start now.

We sang carols. Old ones. Familiar tunes and words. It was beautiful.

The children came to the steps at the front of the auditorium to hear a story retold by a dear friend. There were thirty or forty of them. She told the story. I cried, with no handkerchief to dry my tears. The sleeve of my tee-shirt had to suffice for that.

I think it was about that same time I became aware of it—the noise, I mean. I thought back and realized it had been there the whole time. Through the piano duet, through the carols—even through the opening prayer.

There were “kid noises” sounding constantly throughout the entire service, from start to finish. Happy noises. Words being spoken to parents and grandparents. A bit of fussing might have been thrown in here and there. But it never stopped.

For the full hour, there were children making noise.

I told the pastor yesterday I would try to listen better to his message this Christmas. He seemed grateful for my willingness to try. I’m not sure he’d be as pleased now.

I really don’t know what he spoke about. I’m sure he mentioned a King who came as a baby. He talked about why that happened. I’m pretty sure that’s right.

But I didn’t hear most of it.

I looked down the row from me, and the little boy there had graduated from Belvita cookies to raisins. One at a time, he lifted them from the little box and popped them in his mouth. He wasn’t making the noise. Not this little angel. Well, maybe just a little of it.

I want to be able to blame my faulty hearing for missing the pastor’s words. It is often problematic to hear what I want to hear when there are competing sounds in the room.

But that wasn’t it.

The pastor isn’t likely to be sympathetic.

I wanted to hear the children. Wanted to.

I found myself listening for the individual sounds, the cooing of infants, the almost-words of babies on the verge of talking, even the sound effects of toddlers playing with toys.

As the hour dragged on a little and ran over a bit, I heard the sounds change from contented to impatient, and even downright crabby.

It was lovely. Every minute of it.

I think we do our Savior a disservice when we insist, “But Little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes,” in our version of Away in a Manger.

As if.

Babies cry. They gurgle, they laugh, they whine, they jabber. Sometimes, they even scream.

They’re babies, communicating with the tools they have. And He did, too.

“Children should be seen and not heard” is not a phrase spoken a single time in the Word. Not once.

I don’t always use the King James Version when sharing scripture in my writing, but I like the words Jesus uses when He’s unhappy with His disciples’ treatment of the children who wanted to see him.

“But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.'” (Mark 10:14, KJV)

Suffer. It means to tolerate. To control your natural response. To allow something you don’t enjoy.

I didn’t hear the words the pastor spoke tonight (not most of them, anyway). But I heard every word of the message I was supposed to hear.

In the non-verbal vocalization coming from almost every point of the compass in that auditorium, I heard the voice of God speak to me.

Emmanuel—God With Us—came for every single one of those little ones. The lovely, quiet ones, listening to the lady’s voice as she told the story on the steps. The sweet, compliant ones, eating their raisins in quiet enjoyment. The vocalizers, raising their joyous tones over the sound of the pastor’s voice. And yes, the crying ones who had had enough, their patience tried beyond its not-so-large capacity.

As a baby, He came. As a tween, He stood in the temple and taught. As a young adult, He wandered the length and breadth of the land, sharing the Good News that was to be.

Teaching, healing, weeping, and ultimately, dying, He showed us how to suffer the little ones, the children, who still seek life and love from Him.

Even when we can’t stand the tone of their voices. Or the language they speak. Or the way they dress.

He who came as a tiny, perhaps even annoying, child welcomes children of every tribe and nation.

We come as little children to His feet and worship again.

Suffer the little children.

To come.

To Jesus.

It’s what Christmas is all about.

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas, if you stop opening presents and listen.” (attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby)

Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.” (Matthew 18:2-5, NLT)

Music to His Ears

December 12, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

It has been a month since I sat down to write. Oh, I’ve written short notes, and maybe a nugget or two of truth that have come to mind, but the act of writing has been well-nigh impossible (as the red-headed lady who raised me would have said) of late.

So tonight, I sit here in front of my monitor waiting. Just waiting. I have words inside me—I know I do. Why, just this week, I shouted words at the neighbor’s contractor in frustration. I apologized, too—a necessary evil when one shouts at a stranger.

I even talked with friends at our annual Christmas music party two nights ago. I didn’t shout at them. Still, I did use words.

But the words seem a precious commodity as I wait for them to flow now. Too precious to spend. Still, one can but try, I suppose.

Bogged down in the stuff of this earth, with inspiration in short supply, it’s easy to become disheartened. Of late, I’ve turned to the piano I mentioned in a recent post.

But part of the stuff of earth is physical limitation, and, my age creeping up on me, the fingers don’t always want to pull their weight in the piano playing process. I have a touch of osteoarthritis in my fingers, and nowadays it hurts a bit to play for longer than five or ten minutes at a time.

I’ve been somewhat vocal in my complaints to the Lovely Lady. Perhaps more than somewhat.

The other day, she handed me two books of hymn arrangements that I’ve seen before. They are arrangements her late mother published over 35 years ago, several years before her death.

A much-loved piano teacher in our little town, Viola was stricken with crippling rheumatoid arthritis when she was forty years old. Her fingers were drawn over painfully, at acute angles to the rest of her hands. Piano playing was torture for the dear lady.

Still, she continued playing until a week or two before she died at eighty-four years of age. For nearly forty-five years she suffered, mostly in silence, asking for help when she needed it, but almost never complaining about her lot.

I know better than to think there was a latent message in my Lovely Lady’s gift of those books to me, but I got the message, nonetheless. My malady is minuscule in comparison to my late mother-in-law’s burden.

I got the message; I also am enjoying the gift. In her disability, my mother-in-law determined to continue playing music worth listening to, but knew she would need music that fit her crippled hands better than that available in the marketplace.

She wrote her own arrangements that wouldn’t require her fingers to stretch out to the octaves most music is written with. Filling in with movement, instead of rich chords, the arpeggios supply the notes necessary to fill the air with beauty and strength.

I don’t suppose I need to hammer the point home. Many have already done so.

“I was sad that I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet…”

I like the Lovely Lady’s method of making the point better (even if she didn’t intend to make a point, which she avers she did not).

Help is better than a sermon most of the time. Perhaps, all of the time. My pastor may have a differing opinion.

The situation reminds me that our lives have been full of people who have taught us—by who they are and how they act—how to be the hands and feet of God here in this place. None of us has grown to any point in our lives without a few (or more likely, many) people like that.

Parents, teachers, companions, pastors, friends, even strangers on the street, show us how to walk—how to live. And, we have the opportunity to share that with the generations after us.

I’ve said many times, I hope to be such a person and not the type of man who is more easily used as a cautionary tale instead. You know—like for yelling at strangers.

The letter-writing apostle suggested that people could use him as an example of how to live. He told his protege, Timothy, that his grandmother and mother had been such people, as well; people who lived and demonstrated clearly what they believed, passing it on to their children.

I want to be known for that—not for complaining about the little inconveniences and minor hurts.

I’m going to keep working at the piano. It may never hurt less. I don’t know. But, I’m certain the sound filling the air will be more beautiful than the words of complaint could ever be.

I think Viola Whitmore might even have been pleased to hear it.

After she corrected my counting and fingering, of course.

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” (Sir Isaac Newton, in 1675)

“In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:16, NLT)

I don’t often ask for responses from readers, but it strikes me that there are many of you who have someone who has inspired you along the way. Perhaps, they still do. Feel free to drop a note telling us about them.

Facade

November 5, 2025November 5, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Dealing with disappointment is hard.

I had plans last week. They were pretty specific. We would start the week out with a yellow house but, with the help of a crew of skilled men, would end it with a green one (or, if I win the argument about what that color actually is, a gray one).

It didn’t work out.

The job foreman told me, as they began on Thursday, that he was certain the work would be finished that week. That was before.

The men worked. The old siding came off. The new siding began to cover the walls.

On Saturday, it became evident they wouldn’t finish that week. Not because they failed in their efforts, but because the boxes of siding were empty, and the front of our home was still covered only in insulation and house wrap. The skilled men couldn’t put up materials they didn’t have.

What a disappointment!

We had guests coming to dinner on Sunday! The neighbors have to drive past the unsightly facade of our house, some of them several times a day.

I am not happy. The job foreman and his scheduler came to see me on Monday afternoon. It could have gotten ugly. I know how to make people understand how unhappy I am. I have words inside me to communicate that to them. I have facial expressions to help with that communication.

I didn’t say the words. I smiled at—and even laughed with—the men instead.

Dealing with disappointment is hard. It is. But this is simply an inconvenience. Those men are human beings who feel and care.

And that stack of wood, rocks, and glass is just that. Stuff.

More than that, the man I want to be can’t say those hurtful words without diminishing any opportunity I will ever have to show the love of God to those people whose steps were guided right to my door by Him.

Our guests came to dinner on Sunday. They walked right past the ugly facade of the house and into our home. We laughed. We prayed. We broke bread together. There was music. And joy.

Inside our homes, we share the grace and the love of Christ. The outside walls are just part of a structure, affecting the realities of life not at all, unless we let our disappointments change the course of our interactions with other souls who walk this dirt with us.

And I don’t think we want to know what chaos is caused when we mistake the facade for the heart and soul.

I was wrestling with whether to write about this tonight when an email was delivered to my smartphone. It was one of hundreds I receive in the course of any given week from other writers sharing their articles. I admit that often I simply delete these messages. I assume they do the same with mine.

But for some reason, tonight I hesitated as my finger hovered near the image of the trash can. I breathed a prayer.

“Make this something, God. Something I need.”

As I opened the email, the first words my eyes fell on were the familiar ones from Jeremiah that my father was so fond of. I had actually considered them as I wallowed in my disappointment this week.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)

It was something. Yes, even something I needed. But not for the reason you might expect.

They’re not words to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I know we use them that way. But they aren’t.

God had just directed Jeremiah, His prophet, to tell the nation of Israel that they were going to be torn from their homes and live for years in slavery and want in a foreign land. All because they needed to learn to trust Him.

The words of that verse are certainly words of promise. They are words of encouragement. But they would only come true in the middle of greater disappointment than most of us will ever experience.

In the midst of the wasteland we call failure, God promises success and blessing.

Our disappointments are not where hope ends, but where our future is assured!

I know many who read these words have other, more serious disappointments to deal with than my piddly little siding problem.

Jobs have been lost. Family members have walked away from them. The doctor hasn’t given them any hope for things to get better. Dreams have been altered or given up because of changing realities.

You need to know that even in this season of trial, our God is working out His plan for our lives.

In the midst of pain, grace and mercy abound.

It’s not the time to give up, not the time to attack innocent bystanders. Now is when we learn to walk with Him, in His strength, and in His love. Even if we walk in the dark, we are putting one foot in front of the other, as He lights the path ahead.

We want the beautiful facades.

He’s working on the astonishing home inside.

The day is coming when there will be no more disappointments; when we’ll really be home.

Just not yet.

And that’s okay. Because I trust the One who promises it.

Completely.

“Home is the best word there is.”
(Laura Ingalls Wilder)

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
(Philippians 2:13, KJV)

Humble Beginnings

October 28, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

It was ten years ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I had taken one last trip back home with my siblings, returning with a U-Haul trailer full of memories—rife with laughter and tears.

From the treasure hoard I brought back, I shared an ancient photo with my friends. The image showed five little urchins posing in front of a battered little trailer house. I see a single tricycle to be shared between the five, along with a “swamp cooler” in front of the abode—the closest we ever came to having an air conditioner there in the tropical heat of the Rio Grande Valley.

When I shared the photo on social media, one friend who had grown up with me wrote words that felt like a slap in the face. He was merely stating a fact and certainly didn’t intend the words to dredge up the feelings they did.

“Humble beginnings.”

I admit it, I’m easily distracted. It doesn’t take much to stir up old memories and sometimes, the unpleasant feelings that can accompany them.

Did I say I remember it as if it were yesterday? The strange thing is that the episode with the photo occurred ten years ago, but the pain (which I remember no less clearly) originated over six decades ago.

Back then, an older boy, probably the ripe old age of 9, ridiculed 7-year-old me on the school bus, deriding me for being poor enough to have to live in that trailer house.

I remember blubbering that I didn’t live in the trailer anymore. My parents had purchased the old house across the street just 6 months before that bus ride.

He didn’t believe me. But when we arrived at the stop where my siblings and I were to alight, I grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. Dragging him toward the bus window, I crowed in triumph.

“Come here! See! That’s where I live!”

I don’t know why my mind holds onto some events and not to others. Nor why those episodes pop into my head at the oddest of times.

We had a special service at our fellowship a day or two ago. The kids led worship, both in English and Spanish. Then the youth pastor spoke, his words being translated into Spanish as well.

I’ve told you before that I sometimes have trouble following the trail the preacher lays down in his sermon, haven’t I? A thought arrests my brain, and I can’t really move past it.

I couldn’t help it. The scripture for the young man’s sermon was from John 1, verses 35 to 39. In the text, John the Baptist tells his followers again that Jesus, who is passing, is the Lamb of God.

Two of them desert John and follow after Jesus. When He saw them following Him, He asked them what they wanted. They replied that they just wanted to see where He lived.

Jesus simply replies, “Come and see.”

Wait. All they wanted was to see where He lived? How odd!

But then I got to thinking. John the Baptist lived in the desert. He ate grasshoppers and wild honey. Wore camel hair shirts.

I can just hear them when they get to the house where Jesus is staying.

“Wow! This is better than that trailer house—I mean—desert cave, any day! Let’s follow Him for a while.”

For a minute, I even thought I might have heard a strain or two of the theme song from The Jeffersons (a TV sitcom from the ’70s and ’80s).

“Movin’ on up, to the East Side…” (You sang that in your head, didn’t you?)

He showed them where He lived!

But, I think there was more to it than that.

Humble beginnings don’t preclude moving to better surroundings. We were never intended to finish in the place in which we began.

It should be evident that I’m not talking about a physical location. I know people who have lived at the same address all their lives. I also know, beyond doubt, that they have grown and become different people from who they were at the outset.

The apostle, for whom I am named, reminded the folks in Philippi that their Redeemer would continue the work He had begun in them until they moved on to their permanent home. (Philippians 1:6)

He wants us to be content with what we have physically, but never with where we are spiritually.

The folks who followed Jesus while He walked the earth saw where He lived. Not the place, but the Person.

The place He lived changed again and again. The Person never did, walking constantly in grace and love. And in service.

The pastor reminded us the other day (I did hear other things he said!) that Jesus still says, “Come and see.”

And we, growing into the people of grace, should be saying with Him, “Come and see.”

Saying it, not in pride and triumph, but in love and humility. To all whose paths we cross, taking them by the sleeve and showing them.

Come and see.

Ven a ver.

“You are the only Bible some unbelievers will ever read.”
(John McArthur)

“He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
    out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
    and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
    They will put their trust in the Lord.”
(Psalm 40:2-3, NLT)

Hope Still Keeps Its Promises

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I wrote recently that I was learning to play the piano again, implying by my words that I wasn’t completely certain the outcome would be successful. The jury is still out on that question.

I have found some fodder for thought in the process, though. Just tonight, as I sat at the still out-of-tune grand piano, I played a few notes of an old song I first heard in my teen years. It wasn’t in any hymnal I ever sang from, but had been recorded a decade or two before then by a country singer of some renown.

The song is titled “Whispering Hope.”

I didn’t like the song so much. In retrospect, I think I never really considered the message.

Who needed hope, especially the kind that whispered, when you had the dreams of youth? I was going to live forever!

The future was bright, with no clouds to dim the sun.

There are clouds now. And winter seems about to set in. I know I’m not the only one who feels it—the darkness and the bitter, biting wind.

And yet, there is still a voice that whispers hope in my ears—every day.

Perhaps you’ve heard it.

Perhaps, you’re still waiting.

But there’s no need to wait. If you belong to God, hope—bright hope—has always been His promise.

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5, NKJV)

In the bright glare of the sunlight, hope will be our shade.

In the dim shadow of gathering night, hope lights the narrow path ahead.

In the frigid cold of the deepest winter, hope lends warmth to the despairing soul.

It’s a promise.

And, He keeps His promises.

Still.

“If in the dusk of the twilight,
Dim be the region afar,
Will not the deepening darkness
Brighten the glimmering star?
Then when the night is upon us,
Why should the heart sink away?
When the dark midnight is over,
Watch for the breaking of day.

Whispering Hope
O how welcome thy voice,
Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.”
(from Whispering Hope by Septimus Winner [1868])

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops—at all.”
(from Hope is the Thing With Feathers, by Emily Dickinson)

A Piano in the Path

October 12, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I’m thinking about learning to play the piano.

I’m told I won’t have much learning to do, since I once called myself a pianist. It’s just like riding a bicycle, they say. Or perhaps, as easy as falling off a log.

More likely, it’s a combination of the two and will be like falling off a bicycle.

I’ve done that before, thank you. Repeating the experience isn’t on my bucket list.

But there’s a piano sitting next to my desk as I write this. It calls my name a few times a day.

Some things are meant to be. Not that I wanted another piano in the house. Or even that I thought I should play the piano again.

“Come and look at Dad’s piano,” the fellow said. I used to have some expertise regarding these instruments, so I went. After a surprising (to me) conversation about the old piano coming to our house to live, it actually happened.

A couple of weeks ago, the piano came to my late father-in-law’s old piano shop to stay. In the very room where the white-haired old man rebuilt and repaired similar instruments, the ninety-five-year-old grand piano awaits a player—and before that, a minor repair or two. I couldn’t help feeling, as I touched up the tuning on one of the bass notes earlier, that he would be proud of me.

The gentleman who passed on the ownership of the old piano to the Lovely Lady and me sat at his dining room table while I examined it on that day, a few weeks ago. His mother and father bought the piano new a couple of years before he was born. It has been his piano to play for all of his life. But he and his dear wife have decided it’s time to live where they can have some extra help, so they are downsizing.

Downsizing. It’s a strange word. Many these days are choosing to do it simply because they don’t want to be burdened by so many belongings.

But others, like my old friend, are making the journey because, as our British cousins were once fond of saying, needs must.

Needs must. A shortening of a quote from a fifteenth-century writing that said (in modern English), “Needs must when the devil drives.”

I like the shortened version of it better. It certainly sounds better than the words I say when faced with an inevitable (and unwanted) option.

“It is what it is.”

He and his wife are dispersing their mementos of a long life shared. They’re not shedding their memories, just the physical reminders of them.

It’s hard. But more folks we know are doing similar things around us every day.

I’m happy to be the recipient of the old piano. It has been a lifelong memory for my friend of his parents and his childhood. For me, it will be a memento of him for as long as I sit down to play music on it.

I wrote recently of roads I remember. This is not so much a road as a path I’m wandering these days. The difference is that paths tend to meander a bit into the future in front of us. And they’re not as well marked.

I can’t remember how many years ago it was—but I’m sure it was more than twenty—that this same friend told me my mother-in-law was teaching him to play the piano. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. She was teaching him to play the piano better.

In this house, the same house in which his old piano now resides, he was picking up the path again, the path to being a pianist.

I should mention that, over the last few years, some of my favorite music to listen to at the fellowship we attend has come from the hands of this particular old friend as he sat at the piano on the platform there. He always laughs at me when I tell him that, as if he can’t believe it. It’s still true.

I know, this is just more sappy stuff. That doesn’t make it trivial or inconsequential.

The paths and the roads we walk today have been traveled by folks whose examples we would do well to emulate. As I remember it, my friend was about my age, advanced in years as I already am, when he decided to learn more than he already knew about playing the piano.

So, I’m the perfect age to be learning to play the piano. Again.

Paths to follow. Who knows where they’ll lead?

Maybe you can think of one you need to walk down again, too.

The old piano is calling my name. I wonder if my neighbors will object too much to my answering the call at this hour of the night.

But no.

Perhaps I’ll just practice during the daytime hours for the time being.

“May you live all the days of your life.”
(Jonathan Swift)

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
(Colossians 3:17, NIV)

The Road

October 2, 2025October 2, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t sit down to write anything profound tonight. I really need to head for bed soon. The Lovely Lady says I do. She thinks when I’m not feeling great, sleep is the cure.

But, for some reason, sleep doesn’t come easily these nights. It could be the noises from my breathing and the periodic coughing bouts. It could be the aches and pains that come with growing older.

Could be.

I think sometimes I just need to remember things, and nighttime is a good time to do that.

Tonight, for some reason, I remember roads.

I remember straight-as-an-arrow roads in the Rio Grande Valley that ran out in front of the old green 1957 Ford station wagon as far as my young eyes could see. I was seven or eight then.

The future seemed as far away as that horizon did, and I was sure the road to that future was just as straight, too.

I remember roads that twisted and turned into the Sierra Nevada mountains above my grandparents’ house in the Central Valley of California. Mostly, I watched them from the back seat of the 1971 Ford station wagon with fake, plastic woodgrain on the side. I was fifteen.

The teen years didn’t feel all that happy, but I was sure the future was closer, like that next curve. Then too, I just knew the road I was on wasn’t quite as straight and narrow as I had once thought. And, as we climbed the steep mountains up to where the giant sequoias stood, it was clear there was danger along the way, bringing fear. Side by side, fear grew along with awe at the astonishing beauty of the steep slopes and abrupt precipices.

At nineteen, I remember a highway that carried me out of Texas one winter’s night and into a future I couldn’t yet see. I pulled over into the roadside park just across the state line in Oklahoma, and threw up beside the car.

The future was still up ahead, but that night, I wondered if it was too late to turn back to the safety of the past.

So many roads. A road to a church. A road where, at a stop sign, I leaned over and kissed the red-headed girl beside me for the first time, returning to that spot nearly a year later to put a ring on her finger. A road to a hospital. That one I’ve traveled more times than I care to remember. And, lots of different roads across and under old bridges the Lovely Lady and I have searched out in our leisure.

But tonight, I’m really thinking about two specific roads in recent memory.

A couple of weeks ago, not so far from our town, the Lovely Lady and I stood on a dirt road out in the country, along with our adult children and their spouses, as well as their children. The nice man pointed his camera, with its long lens, at us and recorded some memories.

We kicked up some dust, and the two-year-old grandson sat playing in the dirt and rocks to get his picture taken. I wandered over to the barbed-wire fence and let the black angus mama cow lick my fingers, leaving slobber dripping from them.

I haven’t seen the photos yet, but they’ll only be the icing on the cake after the joy of being on that road with this particular group of people.

And then, there was the gathering last Sunday afternoon in the turnaround (educated folks call it a cul-de-sac, I think) of the little road we live on now. Neighbors actually sat in chairs on the pavement around tables and shared our food, along with our friendship.

In the middle of the road, we broke bread and told our stories to each other, laughing and remembering the past.

Remembering the past; imagining the future.

Sappy stuff, isn’t it?

But somehow, I think we need more of the sappy today. Our daily lives are inundated with bad news from every source possible. And inexplicably, we’ve bought into the notion that we must digest and regurgitate as much of the bad news as possible, imposing our opinions on everyone who will stop to listen or read.

Can I say this? Most of life is lived on backroads and dirt lanes, regardless of how much time we spend speeding down the limited-access highways. Even in the big cities, most of the hours of one’s life are lived in relative solitude, surrounded by friends and family. And sometimes, alone.

Those familiar with my writing will know I’m a fan of Mr. Tolkien and will have read one or another of his “road poems” at the bottom of my essays in the past. I think I won’t disappoint when one is included below.

Some roads are of vital importance to the direction of our lives. The road we choose to walk in our faith is the most crucial.

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
(Matthew 7:13-14, NLT)

And often, we walk that road of faith together. While the choice to walk it is made by each of us individually, company along the way is essential to our staying on the road.

We need each other as we travel. Otherwise, how will we get up when we fall?

I’m grateful for the company on the road. These folks are some of God’s best gifts, in my mind.

I think it may be time for sleep now. She could actually be right, you know. She’s been my company along the road for nearly five decades now.

Help, when we fall.

And someone to make us laugh once in a while.

Good gifts.

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.”
(from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you.”
(Deuteronomy 32:7 NIV)

Breathing Between the Heartbeats

September 25, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I had to write a note to Dr Cho earlier this week. In it, I apologized to him for missing the Monday night choir rehearsal.

I didn’t want to write the note. I didn’t want to miss the rehearsal he was leading. But it’s hard to sing when you can’t catch your breath. Or when the quietness after releasing your breath is just as often punctuated by coughing as not.

On Sunday, as I recognized the breathing patterns and the familiar wheeze in my chest, my first reaction was to blame my Creator.

Why, God? Things were going so well. You could have kept this from happening.

Before I go any further, I’d like to give some instructions to the reader. I’m not usually as bossy as all that, but you folks seem to feel sorry for me when I write about these little episodes that come along periodically. You may even worry about my well-being.

But, this time, I want you to read between the lines—and maybe between the words.

Just that morning, our pastor had spoken on the passage in John where Lazarus, a good friend of the Teacher, had died. His sisters had sent for Jesus days before, but He took His sweet time coming.

Martha wasn’t happy, exclaiming, “If you had been here, he wouldn’t have died!”

I hear my own words in hers. As if we (she or I) knew better than the Creator of all that is.

I came down to my little man-cave to write these few words tonight, but I find that, even now, my malady is likely to cut the words short.

I don’t want you to miss this.

God works through our lives—our challenges and our victories—to bring glory to His name and to draw those who are seeing and hearing to Himself. And, we can either be willing participants with Him, or moan and complain the whole way.

He wants good for us. I’ve said it before (and probably will again). His good gifts really do come down from above.

Again and again, they come down.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.’“
(Jeremiah 29:11-13, NLT)

My young friend, who had a birthday today, wrote that the past year was his “Jesus year” because he was 33 years old. He told of actions he took to make it memorable as just that. It makes me happy to know men like him who are committed to living like Jesus.

But it also made me sad to remember that in that 33rd year on earth, our Savior gave His life for us. And, I was a little ashamed as I thought of my words when the first little wheeze reached my ears earlier this week.

Are you reading between the lines still?

The Bible says that for the joy that was set before Him, Jesus endured the cross.

There is great joy in the journey. There are moments of trial and near-defeat, too. During the time it’s taken me to write this, I learned of an old saint, my friend, who made his way to his eternal home tonight.

The sadness, the hardship—they’re real. Palpable, at times. I’ll stand up in a minute and make my way into the house to take a puff or two from my inhaler. Later, I’ll awake in the night when I can’t keep from coughing.

It’s what we—all of us—deal with. Life. With its astonishingly beautiful blossoms and its dreadfully painful thorns.

But ahead of us is joy. Pure joy.

With no inhalers or pills. With no tears and hurts. With no separations and no more disappointments.

We’re surrounded by a crowd of witnesses. And we’ve got each other to lean on along the way.

We’ll all sing in the choir again.

Beautiful music.

You can almost hear it from here.

“Sometimes the clearest evidence that God has not deserted you is not that you are successfully past your trial but that you are still on your feet in the middle of it.”
(Dale Ralph Davis)

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
(Hebrews 12: 1-2, NKJV)

Not Just Another Sunset

September 19, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

She left after supper. Just took her keys and walked out the door, leaving me in the dark. I usually wait for her here. But tonight, as she pulled out of the drive, I received a text from her.

I thought perhaps she was missing me already and was sending a little note with a heart emoji. You know—just because. But no. There was just one word in the text.

“Sunset?!!!”

I don’t suppose it’s any surprise to my readers that I love sunsets. Come to think of it, I’d love sunrises too, except they come too early in the morning for me to enjoy them much.

So, sunsets it is.

I got up from my easy chair and, taking a minute to get my equilibrium (I have to do that these days, you know), headed out of the dark into the twilight of a lovely, cloudy evening.

I walk about a block to the west of our home to get clear photos of the sunsets—because I know my friends really, really want to see every sunset I stop to admire. And, they don’t want to see a pic of the back door to Patty’s house.

There were lots of folks out in the not-dark. Walking, cycling, scootering (is that a word? Oh well, it is now.), it was the perfect time to be out. I really didn’t want company, though. Which was fine, because nobody but me ever stands at the edge of that field and snaps photos of an everyday occurrence like the sun going down.

Truthfully, the sunset itself wasn’t that beautiful tonight. I was a little late getting there; the clouds were too heavy over the westering sun. The few photos I snapped weren’t spectacular; just a pinky orange sky, almost hidden behind the trees.

Disappointed, I turned away from the field. Oh well, another day it would be more spectacular.

As I turned, I discovered that someone else was, indeed, standing at the edge of the field and snapping a photo of the sun!

The young lady, most likely a student at the nearby university, didn’t stay long. A couple of snaps, and she too pivoted away from the lowering light source.

“Great minds…,” I said. I’m nothing if not a great conversationalist.

She laughed, and we talked for a few seconds about the suitability of the field for our shared activity. I mentioned that I always go all the way to the edge of the alley to make sure there are no annoying power lines in the photos. She agreed that it was a necessity.

It was not a notable encounter. I couldn’t pick the young lady out of a lineup at the local jail, if it were necessary (why it would be is beyond me). We don’t know each other’s names, nor where the other resides.

But the connection we made is impossible to miss. To me, it is, anyway.

It’s a little thing, I know. Still, we old folks talk about the young adults of today as if they have no appreciation of the good things, the things that really matter. And yet, here was this young lady, no older than some of my grandchildren, standing at the edge of the same field this old man frequents and soaking in the glory of God’s creation.

And in a season when, to some of us, hope for the future seems to be an insubstantial commodity, I’m holding tightly on to whatever I can grasp between my gnarled, arthritic fingers.

She turned along the main road, and I walked across it and back toward home. But something else was tugging at the edges of my brain. Now, what was it? Oh well, it would come sooner or later.

I was back into the darkness of my house when I remembered the elusive thought. I had seen a lot of clouds in the southern sky, and they had a little orangey pink tinge to them. Maybe they were worth another look.

Back into the golden hour, I wandered, following the same steps across the busy street from the university. If I hadn’t broken into a trot, that four-wheel-drive pickup might have had to hit its brakes, and it was clear the driver had no such intention.

The sunset was still mediocre, at best. But, looking south, I gasped at the thunderheads piled high just above the horizon. Purple, orange, and indigo, they roiled in the fading light.

It’s always a surprise to me when I see the clouds that are not in the proximity of the declining sun sharing its glorious light and color. I suppose it’s because I think of clouds as dark and dense.

In truth, clouds naturally radiate the colors of the setting sun. If there is a long line of them along the horizon, with clear skies above, the overwhelming coloration travels as far as the eye can see, around the circumference of the circle of sight.

And somehow, as my mind is apt to do, the lesson of light passed by the transient clouds reminds me that we ourselves are light bearers.

The light we bear was never our own. We never produced it ourselves.

It was never ours to hold and hoard.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16, NKJV)

With a head full of these thoughts, I wandered across the street again, taking the overgrown track through the jungle behind my house and past the old barn, itself covered by a curtain of vines, all doing their best to help time and gravity bring it to the ground.

There are still sad things in this world.

It’s okay to grieve them.

But, grieving is “for a moment”. The light is eternal. And, we must share it—with our children and our children’s children—as well as with the world that is dying for those brilliant rays to pierce the darkness where they are waiting.

The Light has shined in the darkness. The darkness will never overcome it.

I’ll admit it. These were my thoughts as I went back into the darkness of my house to await the return of the Lovely Lady, who always makes its rooms brighter for me.

But, inside me, the light is blazing like noontime on a summer day. I think I’ll keep sharing it.

Even with these clouds piled high around, His beauty will shine through.

It’ll be brighter with you walking alongside.

Are you coming with?

“If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.”
(G.K. Chesterton)

“…that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”
(Philippians 2:15, NKJV)

Stand and Fight

September 7, 2025September 18, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I asked them a question the last time I sat with them. I have no idea why it came to mind. Perhaps it was only to remind myself.

“Do you guys have a favorite book, or series of books? You know, books you can read again and again, that still hold your interest?”

They seemed surprised, but we discussed their favorites—and mine—for a few minutes, and then moved on to other subjects. I wished later that we hadn’t. Moved on, that is.

I did it again. Argued vociferously for something I don’t really care about. Just because.

I may have offended.

I’ll not be apologizing.

Well, I probably won’t. They asked me not to the last time I did. It’s not like anyone is still upset with anyone else. We had a discussion, and it came to an end.

I simply need to remember not to bring up the same points the next time we discuss the subject.

But the books…

I was reminded that I haven’t picked up any of my old friends from the shelves for a while. The siren call of the screens is so much louder. So much more insistent. And, I’m not sure I like that.

So, I’m reading about the rabbits again. I don’t know which time it is. The seventh or eighth, I think. It doesn’t matter.

They are headed for Watership Down once more. Actually, have already arrived in the book I’m reading. But, the journey—the struggle—is never-ending. The task, the conflict, lasts a lifetime.

My mind has already jumped ahead in the story. It seemed important to me tonight. The reader may decide if it is or not.

Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll tell you that the main character, Hazel, is a rabbit who is steadfast and wise, leading the ragtag troop of rabbits on their adventures. But, in the particular conflict I’m thinking about (a real fight, by the way), he departs from the pitched battle, leaving his strong friend, Bigwig, to fight a war there seems no hope of winning.

Not explaining his plan, he tells Bigwig, “Don’t give in to them on any account.”

And then, he is gone without any explanation of why. Leaving them to defend themselves on their own. Knowing there will be pain.

I’m not a rabbit. I’m fairly certain no one reading this is one, either.

But sometimes, I wonder. Like those few beasts left behind in this story, I wonder if it’s worth the fight. If it’s worth the cost.

But then, I remember I’ve been given a charge to keep. Each of us who follows Jesus has.

“Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.” (Ephesians 6:13, NLT)

“Don’t give in to them on any account.”

In the book I’m reading, the enemies, stronger and greater in number than our heroes, break through their defenses and are met in a narrow place by the one scarred and wounded warrior who was given the directive from the Chief Rabbit.

When Bigwig, bleeding and horribly wounded, is cajoled and bribed with promises of better circumstances, he only replies, “My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here.”

Scarred and bent, but not broken.

I’m not certain if the author of the book intended for there to be a deeper message. It’s there, anyway.

“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”
(2 Corinthians 4:8-9, NLT)

Surely, I’m not the only one who’s feeling this way today.

The battle is too hard. The warriors standing side-by-side with us seem to be wounding us with their weapons almost as much as the ones on the other side of the battle line. It’s almost as if we think we are in a battle with other humans, rather than with beliefs, spiritual kingdoms, and ideological wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12)

I may have made one of the errant swipes with a weapon myself. Or more than one.

But I’m still standing.

I think I can stand here a little longer.

He’s coming back soon. He said He would.

We could stand together while we wait, you and I. I promise, I’ll be a little more careful with my sharp weapons.

And, I may even apologize one more time. Or, more than once.

Stand here with me awhile anyway—would you?

“Thank you, O my God,
for loving me enough
that you would rouse
my deepest desires again through story,
appointing these longings as true signposts
planted in a war-torn and cratered landscape,
reminding me that all of history is leading at last
to a King and a kingdom,
and pointing me ever onward toward
His righteous and eternal city.”
(from Lament Upon the Finishing of a Beloved Book, in Every Moment Holy, by Douglas McKelvey)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips