“Flowers for my heart with tender words
And a gentle touch that says so much
This is how I’ve heard that love should always be.” *

Valentine’s Day.

Again, the commercialized and cloyingly cute messages are filling the in boxes, mail boxes, and trash boxes across the country.  More flowers, candy, and cheaply-made cards will be purchased than at any other time of year.

All to express a love that never was and never will be.  Love, that is.  It will never be love.

Love isn’t flowers, isn’t a close embrace, isn’t sweet nothings whispered into an ear as you dance in the dark.  And, it certainly isn’t the thousand dollar diamond necklace slipped around the throat of the picture-perfect beauty queen primping in the mirror before slinking out to a romantic dinner for two.

Our culture lies.

It lies every time an ad suggests that all you need to keep your mate’s love is some pretty new bauble.  It lies with each new revelation of ways to keep love fresh in some exotic destination or with an amazing new scent.

I want some new images to exemplify love.

How about a toilet seat?  Either up or down will do.  Love is him, putting it down for her.  It’s her, ignoring the fact that it never gets put down.

Perhaps it could be black olives.  He loves them, so she includes them in her recipes.  She hates them, so he removes them from the frozen pizza before it goes in the oven.

The list could go on, including not a single item that Hallmark could market.  The old toothbrush he used to clean up that ugly old vase that she bought at the second-hand store.  The spool of thread she emptied to mend his favorite old work coveralls.  The ice scraper he uses on frosty mornings, so she doesn’t have to stand out in the cold and do it herself.

In recent years, I have found some new items that illustrate love.  You don’t want to hear about them.  They are uncouth and will make you say the word gross as you see them in print.  And that’s a shame. Because, you see, the other lie that our culture tells is that your mate will always be attractive and will always be healthy.

He won’t.  She won’t.

The bedpan and the urinal spring to mind.  Bodily functions become the concern of the one who loves.  Embarrassment and squeamishness are abandoned as love does, not what it wishes, but what it must. Not so uncouth, but still not an attractive thought, the fork and spoon push their way into the symbolism, as one mate must feed another.  The memory of feeding the cake to each other at the wedding comes back with a rush, and we realize that it is a promise we will keep.

I believe that the one item I would chose to symbolize love most is nothing more than a simple handkerchief.

 These cloth relics of the past have fallen out of fashion–replaced by the paper tissues we use and crumple into the trash by the thousands, but I like to have one in my back pocket.  I would be lost without it.

With the handkerchief we dry the tears of children, and yes, wipe their noses too.  I mop my forehead when the perspiration beads and threatens to run down my face.  But, all through my life the one thing I have used that square bit of cloth for, more than any other use, has been to wipe away the tears that have come.

When puppy dogs died suddenly, the tears from the children’s eyes were soaked up; those from my own, as well.  When the frustrations of financial want were too much, the handkerchief once again dabbed away the tears of fear for the future.

I have seen the tears of spouses as they turned away from the hospital bed their lover lay upon, perhaps for the last time.  Other tears have been wiped away as elderly parents departed from this world to a better place; they were wiped away as conversations led to the realization that mental faculties were failing.

Tears fall.  Sometimes, they are tears of happiness.  More often, as life progresses, they are tears of worry and of sorrow, but always, they are tears of love.

Tears fall.  And we wipe them away.  For each other.

And, there’s nothing cheap about that.

You can keep your cheap paper valentines.  You can keep your sugary-sweet chocolates (well, maybe just one…).  You can even keep your diamonds and jewels.  They’re cheap too, in a way.

Tears fall.  And we stay.

Because–love.

Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
(Carl Sandburg ~ American writer/poet ~ 1878-1967)

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
(Revelation 21:4 ~ NIV)

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

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* from “How Love Should Be” by Jeremy Michael Lubbock ~ American singer/songwriter

The young boy was desperate.  He looked up the road and saw only the immense distance that stretched out in front of him.  A moment ago at least, his sister had walked beside him.  Now, he was alone, miles from his destination.  The tears fell as he walked.  He would never get there.  His life was over.

It had begun like any other school day, the call coming up the stairs.  Perhaps, he had been a bit slow getting up.  No matter, breakfast was still on the table and he had eaten.  His mom had worked the night shift at the nursing home where she was the registered nurse, so Dad had made breakfast.  It wasn’t all that good.  He choked it down anyway.  Some things you just had to do.  That included eating your dad’s scrambled eggs and tapioca pudding first thing in the morning.

Then came the rush for the bus stop.

To put it bluntly, he had no one but himself to blame.  He missed his bus.  He might have been arguing with his sister.

He might even have been sulking about losing the argument when his brother yelled out, “Bus is coming!”

Why didn’t really matter.  What mattered was that he missed the bus.  What mattered was that this was the time his father had warned about.  This was the time he was going to learn his lesson. This was the time his father refused to get the car out and take him or his sister (with whom he might have been arguing) to school.

They started out walking together.  At first, they might have blamed each other for their predicament.  That didn’t last long, as they both struggled under the weight of their books and realized there was no way they could get to school before the tardy bell rang.  

Within blocks, a car stopped and his sister had a ride.  Just like that.  No, there was no room for the little boy.  Besides, his school wasn’t on their way.

Just like that.

He was alone.

And desperate.

You do know that desperate means the same thing as being in despair, right?  Out of options.  No hope.

The young desperado had no expectation that anyone would ever help.  None of his friends were likely to come along.  His father wasn’t going to help.  He was teaching him a lesson.  

The boy was learning the lesson just fine, thanks.  There was no reprieve coming.  He was on his own.  In despair.

On and on he trudged, the tears coursing down his pudgy cheeks.  He had no hope of achieving his goal, but somehow he knew that he had to keep at it.  His heart told him it was a useless attempt, but he kept moving anyway. 

Without hope.

Then without warning, a familiar old green station wagon pulled up beside him.  His mother, on her way home from the night shift, had seen him and came to his rescue.  She would talk to his father about learning the lesson later.  For now, the weeping boy needed to get to school before it was time to come home again.

The young man still remembers the feeling.

The weight in his soul of feeling abandoned?  Gone in an instant.

The fear of more reprisals to come from his teacher and principal at school?  Vanished like a vapor in the wind.

Despair turned to elation.  Hopelessness became relief without mitigation.

The event, with both its dark horror of despair and its brilliant scene of redemption, is indelibly written in his memory for all time.
____________________

Mr. Thoreau said that most men live lives of quiet desperation.  He even said that we go to the grave with the song still in us.  I’ve always thought him an idiot.  

I’m starting to think the idiot role is still up for grabs.  I may have a shot at the job myself.

I thought him an idiot because I had never believed the words apply to me.  I had never felt the desperation, never believed that all was hopeless.

I think I finally understand his words a little better.  The desperation isn’t constant, but recently there are moments, perhaps even hours, when I wonder if it’s all worth the trouble.  I sometimes feel as if I am trapped by the life I have chosen.

Once in awhile, even the good things are up for consideration, as I grapple with the overwhelming realization that the road stretches out in front of me.

And, I can never get there in time.

There’s not much singing during these periods, either.  I’m not talking about singing in church, or even singing in the shower.  When there is despair there is no song from the soul, no expression of joy, because there is no hope.

Mr. Thoreau may have had a better grasp on reality than I once believed.

I know there are many, perhaps even most, of you out there who have felt the hopelessness, the sense of being trapped without any escape.

Maybe it’s time for the old station wagon to pull alongside and give us a ride to our destination.

I got just such a ride a few days ago.

The Lovely Lady has mentioned on several occasions that she wanted to go to the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I haven’t been very cooperative.  But, that weekend, we took a couple of days off to recharge a bit, and to rest.  The trip to the museum finally went into the itinerary.

I griped as we went in the front door.

Nine dollars apiece!  We could have a good meal for that! 

I would regret the thought.

We walked through the doors to the gallery, and were greeted with a single painting.  It was a large oil on canvas, about four feet tall by three feet wide.  In somewhat drab colors, there was a mother seated with her two daughters, one on her lap, the other standing in her embrace.  On the floor nearby was a basket of laundry, perhaps indicating that the woman was a domestic worker.  Nothing about the picture indicated wealth or ease.

As I looked, I saw that the eyes of all three of the female figures were directed toward one small thing just inside the open window behind them.  It took a moment to recognize the object they were surveying.  If they were drab looking, it was downright depressing in its lack of color and distinction.  I recognized it though.  

It was a sparrow, eating something from the windowsill.

Right about then, the Lovely Lady spoke.  “That’s the focal point of the whole painting, isn’t it?”

My ride had arrived.

A sparrow.  Being fed.  (Matthew 10:29-31)

I pointed to the English title on the French painting.  He Careth, the letters pointed out needlessly.  I could not read it aloud, for fear that the tears would start. They did anyway.

As we finally tore ourselves away from the astounding piece of art, the Lovely Lady spoke again.

“I think we’ve gotten our money’s worth, haven’t we?”

One painting.  Such power.  Such hope.

Who am I to disagree?

What about it?  Have you missed the bus?  Do you need a ride, too?

Despair flees in the face of hope and promise.

It was so for the young boy, and even more so for this aging man.  I’m confident that your ride is already on its way, as well.

We’ll get there on time.

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, and open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late.
(from Desperado ~ Frey, Henley ~ American singers/songwriters)

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.
(Job 8:21 ~ NIV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

You’ve seen the ads for the financial products.  The flow charts show how the company’s stock has out performed its competitors for the last twenty years.  The words which are said give, for all intents and purposes, an ironclad guarantee that it will never be different.  You should call your broker now and buy as much of the product as you can afford!  Then you get to the fine print.  If you are listening to the ad on the radio, the next words you hear will be spoken as quickly as humanly possible.

Listen closely.

Performancedataquotedaboveishistorical.Pastperformanceisnoguaranteeoffutureresults.Currentperformancemaybehigherorlowerthantheperformancedataquoted.Theprincipalvalueandinvestmentreturnofaninvestmentwillfluctuatesothatyourshares,whenredeemed,maybeworthmoreorlessthantheiroriginalcost.(Big breath!)

Did you get all that?

Well, they really didn’t want you to have time to think about it.

It’s difficult to sell you the future, unless you swallow the hype that the past is a guarantee of what is to come.

I sit at my computer, awaiting the inevitable words that will come.  They must come; they always have.  I start out with an idea, a concept, and as I begin to write the rest of the thoughts are fleshed out around it.  Tonight though, all I see is that I am at an impasse.  There are either too many words to come, or too few.  I have numerous thoughts about the past and its relationship to the future.  Not many are worth putting into print.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  It applies to writers, too.

Will you allow me the liberty of stopping where we are?  Your mind will, no doubt, have leapt to applications of the concept that I could not imagine anyway.  My explanations would only seem trite and tired, by comparison.

I only ask one thing:  In your consideration of the idea, will you think a minute (or perhaps more) about how grace figures into the concept?

I would be distressed if the only response I encouraged was for you to reflect on the potential for negative and disappointing events to come.  And, unlike the profit-hungry dream-merchant we discussed above, grace requests–no–demands–that you consider the negative events of the past and then expect the opposite for the future.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

I think I may want to invest in that.  What about you?

“A miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.”
(Frederick Buechner ~ American writer/theologian)

“‘For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.'”
(Jeremiah 29:11 ~ NET)

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

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It was another of the red-headed lady’s sayings.  She had an endless store of them and took each one out like a treasure to be shared at the appropriate moment.  This time, someone had mentioned a young couple who were having marital problems.  The pair were, it seemed, no longer interested in fulfilling their vows of lifelong commitment and appeared to be headed for divorce court.

“Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “The bloom is off the rose.”

The phrase may have entered the conversation matter-of-factly, but I wasn’t about to allow it to exit the conversation in the same manner.

“What does that mean?  Mama, what does the bloom is off the rose mean?”

It surely must have been a great burden to have a son who loved words so much.  The questions must have been incessant.  Nevertheless, I was not about to be ignored.  I was not much interested in the conversation about the young couple, but I did want to know about this blooming rose.

The red-headed lady seemed exasperated at the interruption, but realizing that it was pointless to push on, addressed the question.

“It’s just a phrase that my mother used to use.  I suppose it means that the initial excitement is gone and the people are losing interest in each other.”

It wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but it was all the explanation I was going to get.  At the least, I understood the gist of the phrase she had used–enough so that I tried it a time or two in my conversations in the next few days.  None of my friends understood the reference at all, nor did they even ask what it meant.  When you’re eight years old, some things just aren’t worth the trouble in the first place.  I dropped the phrase from my repertoire.

Today, nearly fifty years later, I thought about it again as a friend recounted a semi-tragic story to me.  His tale centered around a man with whom he played music at one time.  The fellow had come across a very desirable electric guitar which could be purchased for a tiny sum of money.  For any readers who care, the guitar was a sixties-vintage gold-top Gibson Les Paul.  The person who offered the guitar for sale wanted a measly fifty dollars for it.  Fifty dollars!  The guitar was worth, at the time, upwards of a thousand dollars (much more, today).  The man purchased the beautiful instrument on the spot.

He was proud of his acumen in finding the bargain and, anxious to show the guitar off, headed for my friend’s house to participate in a jam session with his new instrument.  He parked his car on the street and started up the driveway to the house.  There was no case for the guitar to be carried in, but he had plans to remedy that as soon as he replenished his funds.  There would be no need.

As he approached the house, he tripped over a rock in the drive.  Struggling to keep his balance with the heavy guitar, he let it slip momentarily.  He was quick enough to catch the body of the guitar, but the top of the head stock, at the end of the neck, smacked the pavement hard.  Nearly sick to his stomach, he pulled the guitar upright again to examine the damage.  There was no doubt that something was horribly amiss.  The top of the neck, with its tuning machines, canted forward at an angle, and the tension on the strings exaggerated the effect.  The neck was broken clear through, right at the place where the head stock flared out.  Now he was sick.

The taste of victory, so sweet because of the great price he had gotten, had quickly turned sour in his mouth.  Oh, he soon had the neck repaired and the guitar played adequately, even serving him for several more years, but somehow it just wasn’t quite the same.  My friend tells me that the man never was able to get over the disappointment of breaking the beautiful instrument before he even had a chance to play it with his friends.

The bloom was off the rose.

My mother’s words came back to me in a flood, as my friend told me the story.  But, I remembered the context of her words and then thought about the difference in the two situations.  As much as I hate to say it, she wasn’t applying the meaning correctly.  While it applies quite well in the case of the guitar, itself a completely inanimate object, with the disappointment and the inability to ever again achieve the pristine condition it once had, the phrase was never intended to apply to relationships with people.

I’ve spent some time in research tonight, word nerd that I am, and I realize that the phrase never meant that the blossom has been separated from the plant.  The bloom that is referred to is the sheen, the life, that vivid color that gives the rose its beauty.  The bloom signifies vitality–longevity.

When we acquire a possession, it is inevitable that the bloom will fade.  Somehow though, it never fails to surprise me.  That item, whether it be a painting, or a piece of furniture, or even an automobile, is stunning in its beauty to begin with.  I want to sit and take it in; I want to fuss at the grandchildren to keep their feet off of the material; I have to walk out to the garage to polish the surface for just a minute.  The surprise comes months later, when I realize that it just hangs on the wall, another framed decoration.  I see the children standing on it and playing king-on-the-mountain and merely smile.  I see another nick on the door in the Walmart parking lot and only shrug.

The bloom is off the rose.

But, when we speak of people…

I sit and think for a moment and I have it!

Our relationship with people, be it a spouse, our parents, or our friends, is not a single rose.  No.  A single rose is doomed to wilt, to lose its appeal, to die and be gone.  People, along with our relationships with them, are the entire garden.   

The entire garden.

In the garden, change is always happening.  Buds are developing, overgrowth is being cut away, cultivation is taking place.  Each season, more beauty is seen, as the garden is tended.  Every year, the anticipation is greater, as the display grows more and more spectacular.

Do the individual blossoms lose their initial outer beauty?  Is there disappointment as the astounding glory of this season passes?  I would lie if I said no.  The petals wilt and fall, the leaves drop to the ground. There is sadness, there is regret.  But, there is always the knowledge that more is yet to come, that the beauty of the next season will almost certainly surpass what has come before.

The seeds of the blossoms from past years drop, along with the petals and the leaves, and guarantee the splendor that will be.  True–the garden must be cared for, must be tended to continue, but there is never a time when it is less important, less rewarding.  Blossoms or no, the garden lives.

Do I have on rose-colored glasses (pun intended)?  Am I hopeless in my optimism for the future?  Maybe, just a little.  I have seen it with my own eyes, though.  I have wandered through such gardens.

I have seen friendships which last for a lifetime; I have seen brothers and sisters live in harmony through long years; I have seen marriages that do not come to unhappy ends, the principals disappointed and disillusioned with the rose they have plucked from the garden.  Husbands and wives do learn to tend to the garden, rather than selfishly demanding a beautiful rose to sit in their vase, never wilting or losing color.  The grace of old lovers who still show the beauty of their living, growing relationship is unmistakable and something to be emulated.

It was no coincidence, I think, that when God chose an image so mankind could remember His intent for all creation, He put His creatures in a garden.  He put them there to tend the garden and care for it.

It’s still what we’re supposed to be doing today.  Look around.

The garden plot stretches out as far as the eye can see.

Oh!  I forgot to tell you.  There are a few thorns in the garden too.  You’ll have to figure them out on your own.  I’m guessing you can handle that.

I’ve had to suck on my finger a time or two, also.

“Every time I’ve held a rose, it seems I only felt the thorns.
And so it goes, and so it goes.”
(from “And So It Goes” ~ Billy Joel ~ American singer/songwriter)

“There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.”
(Bill Cosby ~ American comedian/author)

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

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I never want to be so numb that I don’t feel the pain of another’s loss.

It was just another of those statements I wrote as the New Year rolled around a couple of  weeks ago.  I felt the need to verbalize some of the thoughts that were rolling around in my head.

I’m not so sure now that it was a good idea.

Did I say just another of those statements?  It seems that this is anything but just another one.

I feel like a challenge has been issued and accepted.

Almost before I clicked save for the list of thoughts which I wanted not to lose in the noise and confusion of daily life, the news came that a friend’s unborn grandchild was likely to be born without some of the organs necessary to sustain life.  The child will almost certainly die.  I, along with the Lovely Lady, was grief struck as I contemplated the months of pregnancy, and the dread that the young parents will face each day of those months ahead.

Not numb, but grieving and prayerful.

Within days, the same news came about a different family.  The exact same news.  The grief grew and the prayerful attitude expanded as well.

I never imagined the number of friends who would experience loss, or would be facing it in the very near future.  At least four of them have lost parents, more than one has a parent in hospice–waiting for God, as they say.  It is not a time without hope, but the sadness is multiplied as I hear about each one and the circumstances.  An old friend and teacher in my town passed away suddenly, another friend’s father decided that this life was too much for him to bear and ended it abruptly.  A close friend in my church is facing radiation therapy for cancer this week–Well, you get the picture.  That’s not all of them, but it is enough.

The avalanche has buried me.

I’m lying under the cold, icy layers–all of the sudden, remembering that I have problems of my own.  I am buried under my own mini-avalanche here at the music store, family members need my attention and prayers, grandchildren are fighting the everyday illnesses of the winter, relationships need tending.

And, the door handle on my pickup truck is broken.  Okay, that last one is kind of a non-issue.  But, there is this thing they call the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  That just might be it.

I’ve got problems of my own.  They do make me kind of numb, and I’m not sure that I can keep sympathizing, can keep offering support, can keep helping the less fortunate.  I don’t feel all that fortunate myself tonight.

But there is that statement.

I meant what I said.  So now, what do I do?  What about this numbness that is setting in?

My mind drifts away, as it often does, to a less hurried–a less stressful–time.  The tow-headed boy is asleep in his single bed, really just a section of a bunk bed, the same bed he has slept in for as long as he can remember.  He is lying on his stomach, his left arm completely under his torso, the hand, actually hanging over the opposite edge of the bed.

The call comes up the stairs from his mother.  “Time for breakfast!  If you don’t get moving, you’ll get nothing!”

He awakes and, realizing how long it will be until lunch, sits up on the side of the bed.  Suddenly, he looks down at his left hand.  He can’t feel it at all!  He pinches a finger with his right hand.  Nothing!  The arm hangs, useless.

Terrified, he runs to the stairs and shouts down to his mom.  “My arm feels dead!  I can’t use my hand at all!”

His mom, with five children, is not one to panic.  She comes partway up the stairwell and looks at the dangling arm.  Seeing the tell-tale marks of the compression from his arm lying under his body, she shushes his crying and tells him to go get dressed.

“But, I can’t use my arm!  What will I do?”  This is a new experience for the little tyke and he has no idea why his mother is not more sympathetic.

“Oh.  You’ll know when it’s ready to be used again.”  His mom smiles, a little comic smirk, which should have given him some idea of what was to come in just moments.

He still wasn’t ready for it when it happened.  The stabbing of a thousand pins into his arm and hand was not on his radar screen at all.  As the blood rushed back into his once-numb limb, he wished for the lack of feeling which had been present just seconds before.   Mercifully, the sensation didn’t last long, but it left a lasting impression on the young boy.

My mind comes back to the present day and once again, I am amused at how it comes and goes at will.  I’m less amused at the thought of what will take away the numbness I am feeling.  It is pretty simple really.  My mother gave me the key, when she explained the cure to that little boy so many years ago.

“All you have to do is get the weight off your arm and start using it again!”

It’s all a little simplistic, isn’t it?  But, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that there is something to the suggestion.  You see, when I talk about being sympathetic and caring for others, I often leave out one small detail.

Others care for me as well.

Everyday, they ask me if things are going well.  They inquire about my parents, about my sister and her husband, about my business.  They are not being busybodies; they actually care and want to encourage me.  They do encourage me.

I’m not in this alone!  The numbness?  I just have to realize that the weight isn’t mine to carry by myself.  The weight that is making me numb can be lifted.  All I have to do is to get up and allow other people to do what they are called to do.

And, I can keep doing what I am called to do.  With them.

Yep.  Just like in the movies, we have seen the hero go down under the weight of the avalanche that caught him as he skied down the mountainside.  All is quiet and we are sure that he is dead.  All is lost.

But, no.  There is a hand poking through the snow.  Then another.  The head pokes through and looks around.  Against all hope, the mountain has not won.  Our hero is bent, but not broken.

The pins and needles stabbing, the numbness is wearing off now.  I think I may have the use of my limbs again back soon.

…Not so numb that I don’t feel the pain…

I think I’ll stay out on the slopes awhile longer.  How about it?

Are you up for a run down the hill with me?

“Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load.”
(Charles Henry Parkhurst ~ American clergyman ~ 1842-1933)

“For the entire law is fulfilled in this one command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
(Galatians 5:14 ~ NIV)

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

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Scrunchhh!

The racket from a snow shovel wasn’t all that familiar a sound to my ears back then, but I knew what it was.  I wondered who was out working in the failing light and why.  The six inches of snow that had fallen earlier had effectively closed down our sleepy little burg, and unless there was an emergency, no one was out on the roads.  As darkness fell, it could only get more slick out.

Scrunchhh!  I heard it again.

Holding the curtain on the big window aside, I looked across the street.  There he was.  Mr Harold, the crotchety old guy in the house on the corner was out shoveling his drive.  Close to eighty years old, the portly, balding man set his shovel down for another pass across the parking area in front of his garage.  I stood and considered my next move.

Oh, it doesn’t matter.  You know what I did.

Yeah.  I went and got my shovel.  Crossing the road, I walked up his drive and stood near him, ready to get to work.

“Hi, Mr. Harold!  It’s a little nippy out, isn’t it?”  I said the words lightly, but I wasn’t prepared for his reaction to my presence.

You know what I expected, don’t you?  Surely he would thank me for coming out to help.  Possibly, he would protest that he was able to do the task himself.  Regardless, he would be grateful and we’d make short work of the job, a job which would have taken a long time and have been much harder to do by himself.

I was wrong.

“What do you want?”  It wasn’t a friendly question.  The man was openly suspicious.

“What do you mean?”  My reaction was almost as abrupt as his question.  I had been taken aback by his attitude and needed a minute to find my bearings.

“You want something.  What is it?  The old guy looked at me, his lips pursed and with a surly set to his chin.

I finally got what he was driving at.  He thought I wanted him to pay me for helping.  He assumed that I would never do the job for nothing.

“No. Nothing.  I’m just trying to be a neighbor.”  The words from my mouth were polite and reassuring, but in my mind, I added the words “you grouchy old geezer” silently.  I didn’t wait for a reply but started my own swath down the drive.

Scrunchhh!

We finished the whole driveway in near silence.  The last shovelful was pushed off onto the lawn before he really spoke.

“Thank you.  Not many people do nice things for me nowadays.”

I looked into his face once more and saw a different person than the one who had been there the first time I’d looked.  The angry, suspicious Mr. Harold was gone.  This Mr. Harold was softer, perhaps even close to tears.

I smiled.  “Neighbors ought to help each other.”

He smiled back and offered his hand to shake mine.  I crossed the street and he went back into his house.  He was never a crotchety old guy again, but was a good neighbor, waving when he saw us and always cheerful when we had the chance to talk.  I helped him a time or two more while we lived in that house.

Funny.  The older I get, the more I understand him.  It makes me sad that I understand him.
____________________

“…just remember, life turned her that way.”

For some reason, I hear the hillbilly twang of the singer’s voice as the words come to my memory.  The old country song excuses the coldness and bitterness of the person under consideration, assuming that we will agree it’s a reasonable explanation, knowing all she has been through.

I want it not to be true.

I especially want it not to be true in me.

Suspicion is not a pretty thing.  It is a reaction which is born of long experience.  When people take advantage of us often enough, we assume all people wish to take advantage of us.  When we are fed enough sales pitches by folks who claim to have our best interests at heart, we assume every phone call is a sales pitch.  I know.  I hear it in the voice of every person who answers the phone when I call, asking for the person I need to speak with.  The second I identify myself, their voice changes, the suspicion gone, the former hardness absent.

I’m reasonably certain that suspicion keeps us apart as a human race.  It makes us avoid folks who don’t look like we do, or people who don’t believe like we do.  I’m even thinking it convinces many of us not to even attempt to fulfill our responsibility to those who are unfortunate enough to have needs.  We believe they will exploit us, will milk us of everything we are willing to offer.  We expect them to cheat us.

Funny, isn’t it?  We actually cheat them as we close our hearts and our hands.  The opportunities for them to see God in us are lost.  All because of suspicion.

And in the end, we are also cheated.  We’re cheated of friendship, of generosity, of love that gives regardless of the cost and response.

David, that greatest of worshipers, says of God that He opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living creature.

We, too, can have open hands and satisfy the needs of those who surround us.
___________________

The telephone rang in the music store one day last week.  I picked up the receiver and heard the voice of a telemarketer.  As I waited for an opportune moment to close down his memorized sales spiel, I happened to look at my free hand.  What do you suppose I saw?

A clenched fist.  A fist that said, “You’ll get nothing from me!”  The automatic reaction to every perceived attempt to separate me from my worldly goods.

There is a reason they call selfish misers tight-fisted.

I’m not certain it’s only a coincidence we fight people with that same clenched fist.  I’m suggesting tonight that it might be time to open our hands–might be time for us to reach out in love instead of grasping in fear.

I’m thinking it might be time we have a new explanation for our actions.

Love turned us this way.

“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.”
(Mary Ann Radmacher ~ American author)

“…I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.'”
(Deuteronomy 15:11b ~ ESV)

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

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“Man, did he stomp you!  You are so dead!”

My brother shouted out the words triumphantly.  He was right.  David, the boy from two houses up, had just killed me.  He had smashed me with no mercy whatsoever.  It was over.

Well.  Now that it was over, this dead boy could head for home and some supper.  The sun was leaning down low in the western sky and the shadows grew longer and longer.

What’s that?  You want to know about the stomping and smashing?  Well, I just told you.  The shadows were growing longer.

It was a game we played sometimes.  I bet you did too.  We had been walking down the road and noticed the elongated shadows our bodies cast as we ambled along, the westering sun behind us.  Immediately we were trying to step on each other’s shadow, playing a game of shadow tag.  The one that lasted the longest without an opponent’s foot coming down on his shadow was the winner.

For a long time on this particular evening, I had prevailed.  I’m sure the neighbors thought we were crazy.  We jumped and jived, yelling while spinning this way and that–all the while, stomping at the ground like wild men stepping on cockroaches.  Anyone looking on would have seen nothing on which to stomp, but there we were, slamming our feet down here and there, dodging across the pavement to avoid the certain death that awaited us.

My favorite trick, and the one that kept me alive as long as I had lasted in the game, was to wait until someone’s foot was about to smack down on the pavement where my shadow was and quickly to duck down, almost on the street.  The fifteen foot shadow that had loomed out ahead of me seconds before shrank to a tiny thing no longer than I was tall.  The ruse worked for awhile, but finally David, who was the only opponent left alive, figured out what was happening and stomped the road right in front of me.  Even the tiny shadow I cast while crouched down was long enough that there was no doubt of the kill.  I clutched my throat, as did the shadow stretched out on the pavement, made a gurgling noise, and fell to the road.  The shadow followed suit, lying perfectly still as long as I did.  It was such a copycat!

I have always been interested in shadows.  Well, I was when I was a boy.  As a man, I had forgotten about them, the obligations of adulthood robbing me of the freedom to sit and watch my shadow grow and shorten in the sunlight, to make shadow puppets on walls, to play a game of shadow tag with my peers.  It may be that I am moving into my second childhood.  It may just be that I am taking more time now to think about days gone by.  In any case, I have been noticing my old companion again recently, that omnipresent pal from my youth–my shadow.

I saw him once again last night as I took a late evening run.  Oh, I know he is most visible in the sun, but in the winter months, I don’t get out in the daylight as much as I’d like, so the moonlight has to do.  We’ve had a clear night or two, and the waxing moon is casting a vivid shadow as it eases toward its full stage later this week.  I watched my shadow run that five mile course with me last night, but the path on which I run has many lamps to illuminate the way, so the extra shadows can be a bit confusing.

I realized something as I ran.  There was a shadow always visible, since the moon barely shifted in the three quarters of an hour that I was out in the night.  But, each time I ran under one of those lamps, the shadow changed.  The moon shadow was at a different angle than the one cast by the lamp and the closer I got to the lamp, the more distinct the artificial shadow grew and the less defined the moon’s became.  The lamp’s shadow was first stretched out behind me as I approached the lamp, shortening to nothing as I was exactly under it, and then lengthening out in front of me as I sped past the artificial light source.  As I looked steadily down, the lamp’s shadow began to waver and the moon-cast shadow became distinct once more in exactly the same place it had been before I ran under the lamp.  Soon the lamp’s shadow was no more, but the moon’s remained.  This was repeated again and again all along the path.

You know, it seems to me that the light source in which we choose to live and walk is pretty important.  Artificial light is bright enough–for a moment, but if we move, we will outpace it easily.  The only way to keep that shadow from disappearing is to stay under it, never moving.  Even the moon’s light is transient; if we continue in it long enough, the shadow lengthens and disappears.  The same happens eventually with the sun.

I wonder if I need to continue in this vein much longer.  Is it obvious to you by now that this conversation can only end in contemplation of the one true Light?  All others pale before Him. But, like the other light sources, if we stay directly under this Light, there is no shadow, no darkness.

I like that.  Nobody gets to stomp on us in a game of spiritual shadow tag.

No more lengthening shadows as the light goes.

Every good gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights.

I want to live in that Light.

“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.”
(from A Child’s Garden of Verses ~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~ Scottish Poet ~ 1850-1894)

“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”
(I John 1:5 ~ NKJV)

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

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