The old man sat inches away from the television screen, staring at, but not seeing, the figures flitting on the screen.  As always, the volume was cranked up to an excruciatingly obnoxious level.  Still, he didn’t comprehend any of the conversation coming from the speakers.

We went to the nursing home every Sunday.

Every Sunday.

We sang songs.  Dad spoke.  I’d say he preached, but his messages were never like the sermons you heard in church.  He talked to people about God.  He told stories that helped make sense of the sometimes obscure words from the pages of the King James Bible in his hands.

If I told you they listened, I’d be exaggerating for most of them.  They sat.  Perhaps, they enjoyed the music, but for most, the words no longer sank in.

I didn’t understand why we were there.

Before the singing and the talking, we went and found people who wanted to come and sit.  We’d gather them from the dining room and the common rooms where the televisions blared out their drivel and roll them in their wheelchairs or take their arms as they scooted their feet along the hard tile floor in a tedious and laborious imitation of walking.

I preferred the wheelchair people.

On the day I am thinking about, I had the bad luck to be the one sent after the old, nearly deaf man sitting with his nose next to the television screen.  A Hispanic man, Juan spoke only broken English, but he loved to hear the music and didn’t want to miss a Sunday.  I reluctantly (and resentfully) took the time to walk him down the hallway, his feet shuffling slowly all the way.

One of the other residents had the good fortune to have a family member with her that day, a beautiful young lady who sat and sang along with the hymns.  She also sat attentively and smiled throughout the entire talk Dad had prepared.

I know.  I was watching her the whole time.  What teenage boy wouldn’t?

The meeting over, I helped Juan back to his feet and the old fellow, in his eighties, looked over at the pretty girl and smiled.  She rewarded him with a beaming smile of her own and a little wave.

I turned the old fellow around and walked/dragged him back to the common area from whence we had come almost an hour before.  He wasn’t in a hurry.  He wanted to talk.  It was mostly in Spanish, but I understood a few of the words.

He talked about his wife.  And kisses.  I heard him say the word esposa and beso several times.  I looked at his face as he talked.

The old man’s voice was animated and his eyes danced as he spoke.  The young girl had reminded him of a happier time, many years before.

He remembered.

In his mind, he was back there again, back in the land of the living.  When I left him sitting, nose against the television screen once more, the smile she gave to him was still plastered across his face.

I realized on that day, why we were wasting our time on these old worn-out shells of humans.

There were people inside those shells.
____________________

Jenny Kiss’d Me

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I’m growing old, but add–
Jenny kissed me.

(James Henry Leigh Hunt ~ English author/poet ~ 1784-1859)
____________________

There aren’t often poems included in these little articles, but it seemed appropriate tonight.  Did you really read it? Perhaps it would be helpful to read it again before we go on.

I’ll wait.
____________________

Every day they come through my doors.  Every day.  Old people.  Lives over, but still wanting attention.  Bossy, know-it-all, ancient has-beens who want me to recognize who they were and what they’ve done.

I’m learning to see past the blue hair (or no hair), the physical impairments, and the wrinkles.  Finally.  I’m trying to see them.  The real them.

Like the old man at the nursing home, they have lived.  They’re still living, but circumstances limit their new experiences.  But, they still need folks around them to see who they are and to recognize their accomplishments.

I read the poem above earlier tonight and I couldn’t help but catch my breath as the truth I remember seeing in that nursing home over forty years ago hit me once again.

We don’t treat people well because they are useful to us.  We don’t give them respect because of their youth and vigor.  We don’t esteem folks for what they can do today.

We respect and honor people because they are people.  Human beings–made in the image of their Creator, just as all of us are.

There are real people in those shells.  Short or tall, thin or stout, gorgeous or plain.

Real people.

Who were kissed by Jenny.  Or Gabriela.

It still matters.

“It is lovely to meet an old person whose face is deeply lined, a face that has been deeply inhabited, to look in the eyes and find light there.”
(John O’Donohue ~ Irish priest/author ~ 1956-2008)

“And now, in my old age, don’t set me aside.  Don’t abandon me when my strength is failing.”
(Psalm 71:9 ~ NLT)

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

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“Do you know what you know?”

She stood in the doorway and stared down at me.  It was a trick question, no doubt.

She is a business associate and has watched me at work for almost fifteen years now–has seen and heard me demonstrate and explain any number of techniques, and usages, and applications.  She has witnessed my interaction with customers and friends.

She seemed to be serious in her attempt to discern the extent of my knowledge.  It didn’t matter.

I didn’t know how to answer the question.

I was even confused.  Did she want a synopsis right that moment?  The river of knowledge may be wide, but it’s not necessarily deep.

I suppose I know a little about a lot of things.  I am a collector of trivial bits of information about a wide range of subjects.  I think I know what I know.

But, I really don’t want you to know what I don’t know. 

Then again, if we’re talking about business principles and repair techniques–those, I have gathered in as one picks up coins lying on the sidewalk and throws them into an old coffee can.  The collection of facts and methods has grown steadily throughout my time in my chosen field.

I am beginning to become aware of what I know in that respect.

And with that thought, my confusion faded.  That was it.  My friend was simply complimenting me on my store of knowledge within the field of music and its accoutrements.

I smiled and nodded.  “I’ve learned a little bit in the last thirty-five years, I guess.  About time, too.”

The conversation ended and I was left to my own thoughts.  My euphoria at  her recognition of my abilities didn’t last long.  As often happens these days, my mind turned the words it had heard around and around, looking at them from first one angle and then another.

Do I know what I know?

I used to.  I certainly knew more when I was younger. 

When I was twenty, no one could tell me anything.  As a child, and then a teenager, I had soaked up knowledge like a sponge and was self-assured, almost to the point of cockiness.  Arguments were the rule, rather than the exception, likely to break out in almost any situation.  Parties, funerals, ballgames–all were prime locations for me to prove my expertise on almost any subject.

I didn’t care who I hurt.  I was obviously doing them a favor.  Surely, they would rise up and call me blessed, seeing that I was so concerned for them that I would share from my precious hoard of expert opinion.

I knew what I knew!

I am older now.

Not necessarily wiser, just older.

As I age, I find myself looking back more frequently.  I have discovered, to my chagrin, that the bodies I have left scattered in the path behind weren’t aided all that much by me sharing my wealth.

They were simply injured. Maimed, some of them.  I didn’t know that would happen.

I am ashamed that I didn’t know it.

I am beginning–just now beginning–to find ways to listen instead of always speaking.  I am a slow learner, as I’ve mentioned often before.  Perhaps, there is yet time for me to help to heal the damage I have done.

Still, I know what I know, don’t I?

At times, I still wax dogmatic about those tenets I have always believed.  I hold firmly to the faith of my childhood.  I know what I know about that, at least.

But, in the last few years, as I have watched others struggling with doubts and hard situations, questions–questions which I never asked before–have been raised, at least internally.  I’m not absolutely sure anymore that I know what I have always known.

And finally, in the last few years, with the moral failures of some of my strongest early influences, even the foundations have begun to appear a bit shaky.  The questions have become doubts at times, the searching–accusations.

For the first time that I can remember, I don’t know.

I don’t know.

But, I do want to know.

Funny.  It’s a good place to be.

One of my favorite characters in the Bible is Job.  He starts out a righteous man.  He ends up a righteous man.  In between, he begins to give instruction to God.  Seriously.  He tells God what He should be doing.  God’s answer to Job is to impress on him how much he does not know.  With example after example, Job begins to understand his lack of the knowledge necessary to be an advisor to God

Job finally admits that he tried to speak of things he had no way of knowing.  He begins to know what he doesn’t know.  And, in making that admission, he opens the way to be instructed once again.  We find that the end of his life was more blessed than the early years.

I want that.

I’m finally–finally–understanding that I know what I don’t know.  I don’t yet know what I know.  And that’s okay.

I’ll take it a step at a time from here.

Learning.  Growing.

I’ll need some company along the way.  How about it?

Do you know what you don’t know?

Perhaps that’s the beginning of wisdom.

We can find out together.

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.  I said I didn’t know.”
(Mark Twain ~ American humorist/author ~ 1835-1910)

“Don’t think you are better than you really are.  Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.”
(Romans 12:3b ~ NLT)

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

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“It sounds like there are all kinds of nasty things going on inside of you!”

From her accustomed seat at the end of the sofa close to me, the Lovely Lady peered disgustedly over the tops of her magnifying lenses.

We were alone at last, but I could tell this was not one of those unforgettable romantic moments that seem to come along occasionally.  No, my silver tongue had not impressed the lady of the house at all.  In fact, it seemed that because of it, I was just as likely to be disposed of with the rest of the scraps left over from the wonderful Sunday dinner we had just enjoyed.

I have babbled on before about my enjoyment of the respite provided by Sundays–the enjoyment of time spent with others who believe as I do, with an hour or two spent in music, and in the Word, and in fellowship.  After that comes the Meal of the week, Sunday Dinner.  What can compare with friends and family–and grandchildren?  Noise and laughter, in tandem with food and good conversation–what could be better?

But grandchildren grow tired and their parents have trains to meet; friends have their own schedules to keep and Scrabble games to play.  Alas, all good things come to an end, and so it is with Sunday dinner.  The Lovely Lady and I have a tradition of chasing our guests out of the house without allowing them to help with the clean-up–our parting gift to them.  The practice also allows us the time to ease our way down from the mountain peak of commotion to a quiet plateau of teamwork, a pleasant place in which we reside most of the time.

We had finished our kitchen cleanup and our kingdom was once more in order–the puzzles picked up from the living room, the Star Wars costumes removed from the den to their storage bin, and the doll house closed up and pushed back against the wall to await the next visit.

She sat down to do a little needlework.  I just sat down.  I had no plans when I did it.  I certainly didn’t intend to embark on a private discussion with myself which would last for the rest of the day.  But, such is the result of making unthinking comments all too frequently, even when they are intended only to amuse.

” I wonder–should I sit here and take a nap, or should I go out and work off some calories with a long bicycle ride?”

I was half talking to myself, half hoping for some guidance.  But, as is common, the wise lady sitting nearby was having no part of the decision.

“That depends on what’s going inside of you today.”

She meant going on emotionally.  I knew she did.  I understand her pretty well.  But, I’ve always been a clown.  I almost couldn’t stop the words that her comment called forth.

“Well, inside of me, my heart is pumping blood into my veins, and my lungs are working to mix oxygen into said blood.  My stomach is at work on that delicious meal of ribs and baked beans, along with a little potato salad stuffed down into the cracks.  Right about now, it’s…”

She stopped me right there.  I guess she didn’t need the rest of the guided tour.  That’s when she made the statement I started with above.

“It sounds like there are all kinds of nasty things going on inside of you.”

I retorted, “No more than usual,”  and was silent.  I may even have dozed off for a few moments.

But, her comment really got my mind to working overtime.

If only she knew!  Nasty things.

Well.  Think of it.

You shake my hand and there is only the thin epidermis of skin between your own hand and the blood, the muscle, and the bone inside of mine.

You give me a quick hug and that same skin, along with a rib cage, are all that keep you from touching the organs and intestines–to say nothing of the material being moved along inside them.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

But, you know those are not the things my mind was working on, don’t you?  There are all kinds of nasty things at work inside.

If only she knew.

I shiver at the thought.  The anger I feel and surpress almost daily, the hatred of people and things I cannot abide.  There is the lust with which I wrestle nearly every day, and the pride which gets the better of me–also almost every day.

The list goes on without end.  Selfishness, gluttony, greed.  Lies and thievery.  Murder.  Well, not the physical act, but if wishing a person dead is the equivalent, that nastiness lives inside me, too.

If only she knew?  Ah, but she does.  She knows me.  She has seen all of those spill out, has lived with the evidence of those nasty things for the better part of forty years.

She knows me.  Still, she loves me.  Nasty things notwithstanding.

She loves me.

I am overwhelmed.

I said this wasn’t about romantic moments.  And, it’s really not.

I’m wondering if you recognize those nasty things, too.  I’m even curious to know if you have the same certainty that those nasty things are going on inside of you.

The Teacher wasn’t talking to the drunkards and the moral degenerates on that day.  The day He called His audience whitewashed tombs and hypocrites, He was talking to the religious men of the time.  He described them as beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones and impurity inside.

As I leaned back in my chair this afternoon and later, as I pedaled my bicycle all those miles, I couldn’t get that one phrase out of my head.

Whitewashed tomb.

Again and again, I returned to it.  There are nasty things going on inside of me.

But, I told you that there is a Lady at home who loves me.

Here’s something more important than that.

There is Someone else who loves me in spite of those nasty things.  He knows about them, without question. That same Teacher, the one who condemned those unrepentent religious men, paid the price for their impurities and dead men’s bones Himself.

And, here is the really overwhelming part.  His payment, His grace, is intended for every single one of us who has those nasty things inside.

Every one of us.  Me.  You.

He takes broken things and makes them whole again.

Not nasty.

Beautiful.

“…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”
(from Isaiah 61:3 ~ NIV)

“Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.”
(Aesop ~ Ancient Greek fable writer ~ 620 BC-564 BC)

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

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The rain fell all day.

The music store where I spend my working hours has a tin roof, ideal for announcing the celestial downpour.  It was a soothing sound, beginning with the first thump, thump, thump of the individual drops as they raced each other to see which could reach the ground first.

Soon, the whole building was filled with the gentle thundering, as of a waterfall, the individual raindrops melding into a downpour that flowed down onto the parched ground around the building.

I love the sound of rain on the roof.  Often, I’m tempted to lock the doors and go out to sit under the porch roof of the house next door.  It would be refreshing to enjoy the beauty of God’s re-creation from that vantage point.  But today, because I knew what was to come, I stayed put and waited.

Immediately after the steady cascade from the sky tumbled down in earnest, a cascade of another ilk began.  The second influx was that of folks who had nothing else to do, since the rain was falling.

First, came a flatbed truck with a sign on its door that announced the arrival of a lawn service crew.  Anyone knows you can’t mow the grass in the rain.  Besides, a little down time today wouldn’t matter, since the rain guaranteed more yard work in the weeks to come.

Next, the little red pickup with a headache rack over the bed, laden with ladders, arrived.  My old friend, the window washer wasn’t nearly as pleased as the lawn guys, but he wasn’t all that unhappy to take the break either.  He too, will find there is more work to do after the storm moves out.  Somehow, water blown onto the panes doesn’t leave clean glass behind.  He shrugged his shoulders and grinned as he greeted me.

With the hubbub of instruments on which the time-killers had begun to play, it was harder to hear the stress-relieving drum of rain on the roof, but I knew I would sell a few accessories at least, so I welcomed the latest arrival with a grin of my own.

More laborers made their way in and then out again before the dentist and his wife arrived.  I looked at them with a question mark in my eyes.

The man laughed and said, “We needed to get out of the rain and this seemed as good a place as any.”

I looked around.  “These guys all work in the elements.  Are you doing dentistry in the great outdoors now?”

As it turned out, it was his day off.  He and his wife had planned to spend the day outside, but the rain spoiled their plans.  I was happy to provide an alternative to being stuck in their house.  Besides, the last time they visited, I sold them a nice instrument.  Perhaps, we could plant a seed for their next purchase.

We talked  as they killed the next half hour.  As we gabbed about the rain and the plethora of displaced workers who made their way through my doors while the couple watched, a memory from long ago bubbled into my conciousness.
____________________

As I was working with my friend the electrician at the construction site of the new school (now one of the older schools in our little town), a few raindrops fell from the sky.

Our job on that day was to stub up conduit from underground into the void of the cinder blocks which the brick-layers were setting in place.  At the right time, the square boxes which would house the electrical outlets also had to be attached to the conduit.

The walls of the school were growing by the moment as an army of the masons slung the mortar onto the run of blocks already in place.  The two of us worked hard to keep pace and make sure that each outlet was placed correctly.  It wouldn’t do to have any of them inside the wall.

We felt the raindrops.  Looking up, we were pretty sure that the light shower would pass quickly, so we kept working.

Not so with the brick-layers and their helpers.  As the few drops became a sprinkle, they shook their heads and stopped work.  Within moments, the job site was deserted, except for two lonely electricians.

I looked at my boss.  He wagged his head in disgust.

“Six/ten rule,” was all he said.

“What in the world is that?” I queried.

“They draw a circle ten feet in diameter and when six rain drops fall in that circle, they’re done for the day.”

He was being sarcastic, but it seemed as if our workday was certainly going to be spoiled by what we saw as merely a slight inconvenience.  We would have worked on.

They had other considerations.  Mortar is mixed in a pretty strict ratio of cement, lime, and water.  If the mix is too wet, the walls will fail prematurely.  When that happens, the masonry company’s profits will be lost as they have to redo work which never should have been completed in the rain to start with.

Soon, we too packed up our tools and headed for the shop.  The six/ten rule had ended our day’s labor as well.
____________________

“Six/ten rule,” I said to the dentist and his wife today.  They looked at me in confusion, much as I had at my boss that day in the rain.

We watched the lawn workers and window washer leave to go home for the day, and we all laughed as I offered the explanation for my remark.

I’m wondering though.  Mr. Shakespeare said that discretion was the better part of valor.

But, what of the work which must be done?

Not all of us are masons, building walls from concrete and mud.  Some of us are soldiers, standing watch through the dark of night.  Some of us are fire fighters, battling blazes and rescuing helpless creatures from certain death.  Some are linemen, keeping electrical current running to hospitals and water treatment plants.

If we let a little rain discourage us, many others will suffer.  Some will be lost.

Isn’t it just possible that the mythical six/ten rule, while more convenient, may simply be an excuse for laziness?

I’m wondering if a little bit of rain doesn’t too often dissuade all of us from pursuing the goal set before us.  What of perseverance?  What of endurance?

I like to be warm.  And, I hate wet clothes.

I do know enough to come in out of the rain.

It’s just that, sometimes…

Sometimes, the job in front of us requires that we forego personal comfort and push ahead.  There are times when we can only reach safety and warmth through the rain and darkness.

And then, there are the times when we need to come in out of the rain and try another day.

I’m still working out the correct formula, but I know that circle won’t be much help.  The six/ten rule doesn’t apply.

Perhaps wisdom will come from somewhere or Someone else.

It’s been known to happen.  I’ll ask Him again.

Wisdom to know the difference.

“The victorious man in the day of crisis is the man who has the serenity to accept what he cannot help and the courage to change what must be altered.”
(Reinhold Niebuhr ~ American theologian ~ 1892-1971)

“But the one who endures to the end will be delivered.”
(Matthew 24:13 ~ HCSB)

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

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Do you know what I’m capable of?

I almost killed a man once.

My brother.

It’s not an easy story to tell.   I’m not proud of it.

I was twenty years old; he was twenty-four.  He was the one who handed me the shiny, chrome-plated .347 Magnum pistol. He should have known better.

“Just pull back the hammer and squeeze the trigger.  Be careful.  It has a hair trigg…”

I pulled the trigger.  Once.

The only problem was, the pistol was aimed right above his head.  Barely.  It was not on purpose; I just didn’t know what I was doing.  The blast took us by surprise, terrifying both of us for different reasons.

When he got up off the ground, I silently handed the pistol back to him.  Still trembling, I turned around and walked through the cow pasture in which we were standing, back to the parked car, and sat in the passenger seat waiting for him.  It was more than ten miles back to town.  I don’t think either of us spoke.

I don’t often think of the event.  When I do, it makes me shake again, at least inside.  Forty years later, I still hear the sound of that blast in my memory and see the terror in his eyes.  It must have mirrored my own.

I almost killed my own brother.  It’s not one of my best memories.

Do you know what I’m capable of?

I do.

I’m thinking tonight about the world in which we live.  It’s a world that is nimble on its feet when there is blame to assess.  If a terrible act has been committed, we leap to conclusions, picking out a scapegoat from the usual suspects without compunction.  Or proof.

And, when there is proof, if there are mitigating circumstances, we sweep them to one side and stand stubbornly on our judgments anyway.  No excuses are accepted, no compassion felt.

Guilty is guilty.  If you did the crime, you must do the time.

Funny thing.  As many times as not, our original conclusions are proven wrong. Our error exposed, we shrug our shoulders and move on to the next perpetrator.

It is true in our moral judgments, too.  Over the last months and years, I have learned of people I know personally who have failed morally.  They are adulterers and liars, dishonest and corrupt.  They are guilty.

And I rush to judgment, vowing never to be fooled again.  I have no compassion–no excuse is good enough.  I want nothing to do with these law-breakers.

Guilty is guilty.

I wonder.  If my hand had been two inches lower when that pistol went off, forty years ago, what would you think of me today?

“He killed his brother!  For no reason!  Just pulled the trigger and murdered him.”  I can hear the whispering voices now.

Two inches.  Two inches from being a killer.

I still hear the roar of the pistol in my head.  I know what I’m capable of.

You?

“When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'”
(John 8:7 ~ NIV)

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”
(from The Merchant of Venice ~ William Shakespeare ~ English poet/playwright ~ 1564-1616)

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

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They’re at it again.

A couple of hours ago, the truck pulled up to the shop across the road from me with the CD player booming out rap.  I can’t bring myself to call it rap music, since I haven’t been able to associate the two words in my mind, but some would.  The reader is welcome to suit himself.  Me?  I’d call it rap noise, but I’m already off-track, aren’t I?

After the truck, one of those foreign cars with a low-power four-cylinder motor modified to sound fast using a muffler that doesn’t (muffle, that is), pulled in.  The stereo in the truck and the motor on the import car were finally turned off and quiet reigned once again in the neighborhood.  For a few minutes.

More cars followed with more kids.  Not many, but still more than are usually in the area.  The black monsters in my back yard barked to announce the arrival of each.  That was before they began to kick around the soccer ball in the parking lot.  The kids, not the monsters.

More noise.

I wouldn’t mind, but it is after one in the morning.  I need my personal time.  I like to sit at my desk, listening to quiet music and writing.  Noise disturbs the ambience.  My mellow late night mood turns to frustration and petty anger.

Stupid kids!  Get out of my neighborhood!

I wonder if it’s time to call the police?  They don’t belong there at this time of night!

I looked out the window a minute ago to see what was going on.  You can just see me, can’t you?  Typical neighborhood nosy busybody.  I’m standing in the dark and pulling the curtain aside to see where they are.  And, what they’re doing.

Well, would you look at that?  Six or seven guys sitting on the pavement next to the pickup.

Talking.

Just talking.

My mind flies back.  Forty years ago.  It seems like a lifetime has passed.

Maybe it has.

The cars were Chevys and Fords.  The music was blasting from eight-track players and AM radios as we pulled into the driveways of our friends or into the parking lots of shopping centers.  Glass-pack mufflers were rumbling and the noise was heavenly.  To us.  Probably not to the aging neighbors.

We sat and talked.  We talked about cars and music, about jobs and girls.

We talked late into the night.  Sometimes, we got around to serious subjects.  Dreams and visions of the future.  Sad news about friends who had already met with disaster.  Our faith.

They were important conversations.  Important experiences.

I sit at my desk in the solitude of this early morning and reluctantly, my mind makes its way back to the present.  I’m a little jealous of those young men, sitting across the street, spinning their dreams out into the air.  I almost want to go over and ask if there is room on the pavement for one more.

Oh, it’s not that I’m unhappy with the way things have gone.  I wouldn’t change a thing.  With the Lovely Lady at my side, we’ve made some dreams come true.  There are more still in process.

I would like the chance to offer some insight, though.  I have a few years of experience that I could share…

But, no.  We wouldn’t have listened then.  They’ll not listen now.

Better to let them dream.

The moment has passed anyway.  The parking lot is now clear, the inhabitants thereof having left rather quietly over the last half hour.

I hope they’ve gone to follow their dreams.  Time will tell.

Me?  I’m left here with my quiet music, my thoughts, and a few of my own unfulfilled dreams. Very few.

God has been good.  I am grateful.

Tomorrow, this aging man (who still remembers what it was like to roar down Tenth Street in that ’72 Vega with the wide Parnelli Jones slicks on the back) is going to get back to work on the dreams.

Where there’s life, there’s hope.

I’m still breathing.

“‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.'”
(Acts 2:17 ~ NIV)

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
(Langston Hughes ~ American poet ~ 1902-1967)

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

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“We have water!”

The Lovely Lady, not given to idle talk, spoke the words almost disgustedly as I sat at my desk on a recent afternoon.  I, on the other hand, am given to more than my share of foolishness.  I had a quick answer.

“Of course we do.  We paid our water bill, didn’t we?”

Grinning stupidly, I stood and walked around the corner to where she stood pointing at the floor.

Water.  On the floor.  Any number of feet away from a plumbing supply line in the building.  The puddle was growing, so we moved.  In opposite directions.  She headed to find an old towel.  I stalked to the air conditioner’s closet and reached inside.  I knew exactly what I was seeking.

I slid my finger inside the inch and a half big hole on its top and touched cold water right up at the lip of the smallish black box.  Yep, the puddle was overflowing from here.

Oblivious to the water which I knew would splatter everywhere (it couldn’t be worse than the rapidly expanding lake on the floor), I lifted the box a few inches in the air and dropped it back on the shelf upon which it rested.  Immediately, the motor inside roared to life, and the water level receded almost instantly.

When the Lovely Lady arrived back at the scene twenty seconds later, towel in hand, the crisis was over.  The puddle still needed to be sopped up, but it was no longer expanding, so it was just a matter of moments before the mess was cleaned up.

How could such a thing happen?  And, what is this black box inside we keep inside the hall closet?

Suffice it to say that my stubborness is fully to blame.  The black box is a pump, placed there because years ago, I wanted the air conditioner in that location, and it is some distance away from a normal drain.  The condensate from the unit has to be pumped into the attic and then outside through a small piece of copper tubing.

The pump’s motor forces water out, but it also has a float which tells the motor when to run.  When the water level in the tank reaches a certain level, the float activates a micro-switch which starts the motor, draining the reservoir.

Easy-schmeasy.

So why all the fuss?  And, why is there water running out the top of the pump and onto the floor?

I’ve known the answer to that question for a long time.  The answer can be held between my finger and thumb with ease.  The culprit is a little piece of polystyrene (commonly called styrofoam) less than an eighth of an inch in diameter.

Less than one-eighth inch!

The building is two thousand feet in area.  With eight-foot ceilings, the cubic feet to be cooled are a mere sixteen thousand.  For all those sixteen thousand cubic feet, we have a five-ton compressor unit that cools the air.

And, for that huge cooling unit, we have a tiny box which removes the moisture which collects as condensate.

And, for that tiny black box, a single eighth inch ball of polystyrene can (and frequently does) bring the whole works to a screeching halt.  All that has to happen is for a solitary piece of styrofoam to come between the contacts of the micro-switch which tells the motor on the pump it is time to run, and we’re done.

“We have water!”

I hate those words.

Why not get rid of the polystyrene ball?

I would, but the little one-eighth inch balls are what insulates my attic.  Thousands of them.  I have to have insulation.

They fall down into the hall closet around the duct work, also a necessary part of the system.  The pressure in the closet moves them around and they sift into the pump.

One ball.  All that big building, all that air moving, all that big unit blowing up a gale.

All shut down with one tiny polystyrene ball.

One.

The size of this O.

You will, no doubt, fill in the blanks to make an appropriate application for your circumstances.  I have my own issues and their tiny culprits.

I wonder if it is time to turn my attention to a detail or two.

Then again, there is no water today.

Perhaps tomorrow.

“Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.”
(James 3:5b ~ NIV)

“A little neglect may breed mischief …
for want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
for want of a shoe the horse was lost;
and for want of a horse the rider was lost.”
(Benjamin Franklin ~ Poor Richard’s Almanac, preface [1758])

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

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