Thru-Hiking

August 17, 2025August 17, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

The tears come more easily these days; I freely admit it. Still, more than three times in one day used to mean that something was fundamentally wrong. Trauma, illness, pain, or some such ordeal must have been experienced to cause such a flood of emotion.

None of those is in evidence right now. But, there have been tears today—several times.

I saw her in the parking lot at the grocery store we sometimes call Smallmart—the lady I once compared to Jesus as He washed His disciples’ feet. She, weak and uncertain of her own future, had taken the time to help my sister in a terrifying situation in life. And with her aid to my sister, I was helped as well.

But today, she thanked me for what I wrote about her over a decade ago. Tears came as I reminded her of how precious her gift was. Precious to a woman coming to grips with the physical realities of cancer. And, precious to a man who needed to learn a lesson in having a servant’s heart.

A gift never to be forgotten.

Home again this afternoon, I pulled the mail from the box at the street. There was a package I hadn’t expected. The handwritten note inside brought the tears once more. My old friend thanked me for my tactfulness in a recent situation and for my friendship.

I ruined his life.

Okay, that’s a little over the top. I was present at a poignant moment a few weeks ago when my friend realized that he had come to the end of a longtime calling in life. Physical changes are making it impossible for him to do his work effectively.

I tried to be gentle. It’s not my best attribute, but I did try. And, he thanked me. For that, and for an earlier time in our history when we worked through a difficult issue together.

I will treasure his letter. More than he could know.

But can I admit something to you?

I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t then. I don’t now.

I’m just now learning how to be an old friend. (Emphasis on the word “old”.) I have no expertise in being old. And, I’m not always that good at being a friend, old or otherwise.

But, about being old…

Nothing has prepared me for the losses. Or the pain. Or the silences.

As often as not, I feel as if I’ve lost my way. I started, in my youth, with dreams and plans. Some of them were met and exceeded. But now?

I’m not always that sure of my directional skills.

My friends, a young couple who love to walk the wooded trails, the rock-covered pathways, crossing rivers and traversing mountains (I’ve written about them before, you know), are doing a “thru-hike” of the Appalachian Trail this summer.

They started in Georgia a few months ago. Today in Maine, they passed the 2000-mile mark of the 2190-mile effort. I am in awe.

I call them a young couple, but in truth, they are deep into middle adulthood, and I’m amazed at their bravery and strength. And yet, I see the vulnerability in her writing as she sends reports to their cheering section, back home. Tears have come to my eyes more than once as I’ve read the description of their soon-to-be-completed attempt.

The closing words of her report today had the same effect again. For the third time on this day, I had to wipe the bothersome fluid from my eyes upon reading the sentiment there.

“The AT is going north, but in my heart, I’m walking home.”

I understand. Oh, I’d never attempt the Appalachian Trail myself. But I get it.

I’m making a thru-hike of my own, you see. So is everyone I know.

And, it doesn’t always seem I’m going in the right direction when I’m only trying to get Home.

There’s a map, but sometimes I think the road signs aren’t written in a language I understand. I took to the road, so certain of my route, but along the way, I’ve become a touch insecure in my sense of direction.

I sat with my PhD buddies at coffee last week and we talked about the changing topography—the shifting landscape. We agreed it’s not so easy to read the signs anymore. And, I’m not just talking about failing eyesight.

But, as worried as I am about my companions who think I can be trusted to write the correct words here, or to treat them with the respect due to old friends on the road, I am still certain that the One who began this work in us will see it through to completion. (Philippians 1:6)

He won’t leave us at mile 2000 when we’ve got just 190 more to go. Even if we’re headed in the other direction, He is faithful.

Faithful.

There’s a reason I’ve mentioned friends and companions so many times in this little essay. It may be obvious to some of you already.

We are intended to walk the road home with folks who can be depended upon to love us, to correct us, and even to carry us if need be.

“Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.”
(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NKJV)

We need each other. It is our Creator’s design and even His delight.

We sharpen each other, as one piece of iron sharpens another. We keep each other out of the ditches alongside the lane.

And, we just love each other. Year after year, day after day, minute after minute, we care for each other as He does for us.

And, we walk each other home. Sometimes in pain. Often, through sadness or sickness. Trembling in fear, we throw our arms around the shoulders of our companions and just walk beside them.

Walking home.

With our family.

My mother-in-law used to get a little mixed up in her directions. When telling a story, the dear lady would want to indicate the direction in which a building or other such place lay to her listeners, but she couldn’t remember it easily, so she’d just include every point of the compass in her description.

“It was north-south-east-west. Oh, you know!”

We do know. And, we can help each other get where we’re going.

Even with tears in our eyes.

Home.

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.”
(from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.”
(1 Peter 4:8, NLT)

Living in Luxury

August 7, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Nineteen sixty-one. It was a year of change for my family. Most wouldn’t have thought the changes all that beneficial.

We weren’t living in luxury. Dad had intended to support his family with a career in the U.S. Navy. For thirteen years, he had done just fine, advancing to the rank of a Petty Officer Radioman. Then one day in 1961, he was out, purportedly with a chronic illness from which he had never suffered.

Returning to the Rio Grande Valley, where he had been stationed for a time, Dad, along with his red-headed wife and five children ranging from ten down to four years old, were living in their small mobile home parked in an orange grove, thanks to the kindness of the old farmer who owned it. The erstwhile radioman became a ditch digger with the local natural gas supplier.

You can imagine that the five urchins living in that little mobile home understood rather rapidly what it was like to survive on a tight budget. I don’t remember hearing much complaining, but it’s never easy to cut back on extras, especially for a 4-year-old who already had a sweet tooth, loving Butternut candy bars and Dr. Pepper.

One day, all the little waifs were delighted to receive a surprise gift from our grandfather. The old man (he was never anything but old to me) was in no way blessed with a surplus of luxuries in his own life, but he knew his grandchildren would enjoy the shiny silver coins he shared. Each child got a coin of their very own.

What a treasure! The Liberty silver dollars, minted forty years before in the follow-up to the Great War (commonly known to us now as World War I), featured the head of Lady Liberty on one side and a victorious eagle on the reverse, clutching an olive branch in its claw.

The little stair-step ragamuffins gathered around our parents, silver dollars clutched in dirty hands, begging to go to the grocery store immediately. Can you blame us?

A dollar! One hundred pennies!

Images of bubble gum (with Bazooka Joe comics wrapped around them!) and candy bars, along with a toy whistle or a rubber ball, flew through my tiny brain like wealth so vast, it couldn’t be grasped. A dollar to this tiny, poor tyke was luxury beyond his dreams.

We went to town. But not to the grocery store. Not at first anyway.

All stuffed into the 1957 Ford station wagon, we sat and waited for Dad at the bank. It wasn’t clear why our patience needed to be tried by such a delay, but it just gave us more time to jabber to each other about what we would buy at the HEB store down the highway.

Before we knew it, here came Dad with a small stack of dollar bills in his hand. A crisp, new one-dollar bill for each of the siblings. Even this little chubby four-year-old got one.

“Now, you can spend your dollars at the grocery store,” Dad said, taking the shiny silver coins from each of us in turn.

We thought it was a strange thing to do. A dollar is a dollar, isn’t it? But it didn’t matter to us. We were on our way to heaven-on-earth!

Over the years, we would catch sight of the silver dollars in the little box in Dad’s closet. Each time, one of us would exclaim, “Oh! There are our silver dollars from Grandpa!”

And Dad would quietly reply, “No. These are my silver dollars from Grandpa. I bought them from you.”

It took me a lot of years to understand what had happened back when my siblings and I sold our grandfather’s precious gifts to us.

Like Esau with his birthright, we happily sold our gifts from Grandpa to assuage the temporary desires that drove us. And, like Esau, the desire returned again and again. The birthright never did.

Gone. Squandered like water onto sand.

Fortunately, for the siblings in this story, that wasn’t the case. A wise father, as he approached the end of his lifetime, came for a visit with us.

He had a box with him. And, reaching into that box, he brought out silver dollar after silver dollar, one of which he handed to each of the siblings who were present.

“They were a gift from your grandfather. Now, they’re a gift from me.”

It was always his plan. For over forty years, he kept them. To give to us.

In our naivety, childish and undisciplined, we only saw the monetary value of the gift. He knew the gift was worth much more than that. He knew we would come to understand that some day.

As my mind turns over the story (I’ve had a lot of years to think about it, you know), I begin to wonder if we ever outgrow our naivety. Or our childishness.

So much wealth, we are surrounded by. So much.

And we miss it. Snatching at the useless, temporal pleasures of this world, we cannot see the great treasure we’ve been given. Gifts from above, sent from a loving Father.

One of my poet friends wrote the words recently. Her words arrested me. I mean that. Stopped me in my tracks. They are still shocking.

I hope she won’t mind me sharing a few of them here:

“I live in luxury of holy things
They are the sweet possessions of my soul.
My life is filled with all His Spirit brings.”
(from Luxury, by April Petz)

Luxury of holy things!

We are surrounded by them, covered by them, and undergirded with them. Not just enough, but a surfeit of gifts from our Creator.

It’s not my intention to make a list of these holy things. I’d never be able to enumerate them. Besides, there are books and articles written by many others more well-equipped to describe them.

I will say that there are more things on the list of holy things than ever those writings could contain. And, it doesn’t hurt to let our minds run freely over them frequently.

James says that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights. (James 1:17)

Every one of them.

Perhaps it’s time to look for them ourselves.

I’m not going to tell you my silver dollar is one of the holy things. But it symbolizes one of them to me.

Every time I look at it—even if it’s only to see it in my mind’s eye and turn it over in my thoughts once again—I consider the holy gift of the love of a family; Love passed down from an old man to his grandchildren; Love from a father who helped his children to understand the importance of treasuring the gift.

Oh! Do you know what the numismatists (that’s a coin collector to you and me) call that silver dollar?

It’s the Peace Dollar, designed with a message of peace to a war-weary world after the horrible carnage of the Great War, one many hoped would be the war that brought an end to all wars. The word is inscribed right down at the victorious eagle’s feet on the reverse side of the coin.

World peace wasn’t to be. Peace doesn’t come at the bidding of politicians and economic manipulations of the supply of coins.

It’s a luxury, given by a loving Heavenly Father to His children.

If only we treasured it as much as He does.

Peace.

What a luxurious gift!

Another one of His invaluable holy things. A gift to us in the chaos and the strife, in the terror and the agonizing pain.

And, it’s ours—a gift from the heart of our Loving Father.

And somehow, I know, His holy things are made more holy as they are shared with others.

And the more we give them away, the wealthier we become in holy things.

Peace. Hope. Joy. Love. Grace. Mercy. I start the list again in my mind, but am overwhelmed by the wealth.

How rich we are in the only things that matter.

But, I’d still take a Butternut candy bar, too.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.“
(John 14:27, KJV)

“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.”
(Erich Fromm)

One Man’s Trash

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

I love nature. Because I believe in a Creator who started it all and who keeps it in motion by His power, I am constantly astounded by the complexity of the smallest parts of His creation.

Yesterday was no different. What was different was the location in which I found the piece of creation that amazed me.

It was outside my front door. Before my feet even touched the grass or the dirt, my eyes and imagination were captured by the tiniest of creatures—one I had never seen before. At least, so I thought.

I saw a pile of trash walking. With a total length of half an inch, it was a minuscule pile, but a pile nonetheless. I almost had to rub my eyes to be sure it wasn’t a trick of my aging eyesight.

No. I’m sure that little blob walked down the rail along my front steps. I reached down and put my hand on the rail, and it stopped. Then with just the barest touch of my index finger, I nudged it.

Down to the ground beside the steps, it tumbled. I could no longer see it in the mass of vegetation and dirt, so I just walked on to my destination up the street. But, when I returned a half-hour or so later, it was back up on the rail.

I didn’t put it there. It couldn’t have blown up there in the wind.

It must have climbed back up.

I took a photo.

It seemed to be in a hurry and didn’t want to stay still for me to get a good shot.

So, I took a video. Right along the edge of the handrail, it zipped along, stopping only when I put a hand in front of it. It had experienced that before and didn’t want to tempt fate, it seemed.

Inquiring minds want to know. They do.

What is it, this pile of trash that walks?

I did some searching and found a couple of options, but in comparing the photos I took and the ones in the scientific articles about the little camouflaged creatures, I found that this is nothing more than the larva of the common green lacewing, using the debris of its victim’s bodies for camouflage.

The beautiful, delicate creature in the main photo that accompanies this article is a mature green lacewing. Created by its Maker to destroy aphids and ants (and many other varieties of plant-killing pests), the lovely creature moves in beauty and grace to fulfill its purpose.

Just not at first.

I posted the photo and video—along with an explanation of what was pictured—on an online nature page of which I’m a member. It has inspired wonder (and dread for some) in several hundred members who pay attention to such things. Most members accepted the explanation without arguing.

One fellow in the group, though, posted two or three times, insisting it was a “trashbug”, despite my clarification. I can only assume that’s what his family and possibly his friends have always called it.

But the green lacewing goes through several stages in its life, in every stage taking on a different form. We call it metamorphosis. The word means to make a complete change from the shape and behavior of the previous stage.

The example of metamorphosis most familiar to us is that of the caterpillar, which changes from the original worm-like form to that of a beautiful butterfly.

I sat in a coffee shop this morning and bantered with my learned friends. Bob had ordered his coffee in a to-go cup today. I only mention that because the disposable cup had a zarf around it to keep his hand from being burned. Yes, it’s called a zarf. I don’t know why. Ask your AI friend online.

The lovely folks at the coffee shop write Bible references on the zarfs to encourage their customers. I’m not good enough to have thousands of verses at my mental disposal simply from seeing a reference, but Google helped me find the message. I have memorized this particular verse in the dim, distant past, but I need help some days now.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT)

It was an aha! moment for me. Not that I haven’t thought about this before. I know that our Savior is making all things new for those of us who have experienced His grace.

But, I can’t stop thinking about that guy who will never think about my insect friend as anything other than a trashbug. Even though the ugly little larva stays in that form for no more than two or three weeks of its entire life cycle.

Two or three weeks as an ugly stack of animal carcasses, and it will never, ever, be accepted as anything else. Even when it has become the spectacular and lovely creature you see in the main photo.

Trashbug!

My learned friends looked at me with disbelief when I said we can never change enough for some people. So, I asked them about a very familiar television evangelist who died recently.

“What do you think about when I say his name?”

They admitted to thinking about an adulterer and a perverted man.

Even though he repented. Even though for the decades since his public humiliation and subsequent public confession, there has been no hint of his returning to that sin.

Trashbug.

I am not my past. I’m not.

As far as the east is from the west (do the measurement yourself, if you can), my sinful past has been removed from me. Yours too, if you’ve given Him your life to make new. (Psalm 103:12)

He who has begun that work will continue it until the day when there is no more temptation left to be resisted—no more sin to turn away from. (Philippians 1:6)

You are not your past.

We are who God says we are. Not the loser people remember when they look at us.

We have become the lovely, useful children of a Loving Father. Flying on the sleek, transparent wings of His grace and mercy, we touch the world with beauty and purpose.

But, it’s easy to let the world around us draw us back. I felt the draw just recently when, in casual conversation, someone mentioned the name that bullies in elementary and junior high school once used to embarrass me.

No one uses the name in reference to me now, nor have they for many years. And yet, in an instant, I was that boy again. In my mind, I was.

But, I’m not.

He says I’m not.

The ugly duckling I was once is gone. The trashbug is gone.

Forever gone.

Now is the time to fly.

I won’t wallow in the trash again. Won’t carry it on my back. Nobody is going to knock me to the dirt and make me cry “Uncle.”

I’m going to let these wings dry in the sun for a few minutes. You’ll do a trial flight or two with me soon, won’t you?

Mount up on wings.

Leave the trash behind.

Metamorphosis.

“You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” (C.S. Lewis)

“He raised us up together with him and seated us together with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:6, NET)

Bless You!

July 10, 2025July 17, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

All I did was sneeze.

Seriously. I sneezed. It was a traumatic event. I may never forget it. This particular sneeze, I mean.

It happens often enough. A bit of pet fur floats past, and the microscopic dander is inhaled. The body knows what to do. Foreign bodies are persona non grata and must be expelled ASAP.

I checked with WebMD to be sure I was being accurate: “The abdominal and chest muscles activate, compressing your lungs and producing a blast of air.”

It happens most days for many. The Lovely Lady, upon arising each morning, greets the sun with several such explosions. They call it a photic sneeze reflex, and it almost always guarantees she’ll not be sleeping in on any sunny morning.

Just a sneeze.

They stuck a needle in the vein between my right thumb and index finger a week ago. “Nothing to worry about,” said the surgeon as he stood beside the gurney, a smile splitting his face. “You’ll go to sleep for a little while. During your nap, I’ll make two or three small incisions in your side. I’ll slap a piece of mesh against your abdominal wall and you’ll never have to worry about this problem again.”

He didn’t tell me he was going to put half a hundred polypropylene tacks into my belly to keep the mesh there.

I wasn’t warned about the pain level those little sharp things would induce. As I write this, a week later, it’s still difficult for me to walk without feeling them.

But, three days after my little anesthesia-induced nap, I was thinking I had at least found an even keel, a neutral ground between extreme pain and drug-induced daze. The prescription narcotic pain-reliever had been abandoned for a normal over-the-counter analgesic, which functioned nominally—as long as I didn’t try any acrobatics or even semi-swift sitting up movements.

That was before The Sneeze. There was no warning. Relaxing in my recliner, with pillows and comfort blankets piled around me, I inhaled, and the aforementioned compression of abdominal and chest muscles occurred instantly.

Simultaneously, I felt a ripping pain—almost like a knife tearing me open across my stomach. I think I screamed. You’ll have to ask her, she of the half-hearted morning sneezes that greet the sun. She was sitting nearby, stitching on a project. I’m certain she had to recount threads to find her place again.

The pain didn’t subside with the dying away of the original blast, but kept coming in waves for some time. I said I might have screamed. I might have cried like a child who has smashed his finger in the car door, too.

Might have.

Regardless, I have determined that I don’t want to sneeze again for a good long while and am taking measures to ensure that. Time will tell.

You’re laughing, aren’t you? It’s okay. I would be laughing if it hadn’t happened to me.

But, there is more to say. About the hurts of this life. About the terrifying suddenness of its excruciating trauma.

We go through life dealing with the little hurts. Over time, there is reason to believe we have succeeded in balancing the pain with joy, the sorrows with celebration.

But the little hurts accumulate. The massive hurts seem to hide, unseen, around innocent turns in the road.

And one day, unanticipated (because we are coping, you see), there is nothing to do but live with the pain—to walk through the massive hurts.

One late night, the phone rings and a relative says, “He’s had a stroke.”

One afternoon, the police knock on the door and inquire if you are the parents of a young man who went kayaking that morning.

One morning, you awake to find a note on the pillow beside your head, informing you that your marriage is over.

There are so many of them. The small hurts. The traumatic surges and waves of paralyzing pain.

And, telling ourselves we are prepared is not the same as being exempt.

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
(1 Corinthians 10:12, NKJV)

With tricks and trite sayings, we fool ourselves into a false hope of security. Psychology, spirituality, and ideologies are borrowed to prop up the hope.

The walls are built high. We are convinced they must be strong because we can’t see the danger through them anymore.

We’ll be okay.

Until someone sneezes. Then the silly, inane, everyday things bring the wall of protection tumbling down in an instant.

I felt it fall as the videos of the roaring river in the Texas Hill Country, and the reports of children and adults being swept to their deaths in the torrent, began to multiply in the media recently. So did many of us. Nothing can protect against this pain.

It takes our breath away. There are screams. And tears. So many tears.

But, just as I know the pain I felt sitting in that chair a few days ago will be short-lived, I am sure that there will come a day when this trauma will be a shadow, a memory of things that are gone, never to be repeated.

He promises it. Tears wiped away. No more crying. No more death. No more pain. (Revelation 21:4)

But, until then?

Pain lingers. It does. From cuts and injuries long forgotten, the pain endures, far past its due.

From losses and mistakes, cruelty and acts of nature, it persists.

And our Creator, our Savior, encourages us. He gives us hope. Not the kind of empty hope the world offers, but the kind that shines with truth and promise.

“Weeping may last through the night,
but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b, NLT)

One of my favorite lines from the old hymn has wormed its way into my soul in recent years. I like it dwelling there.

“Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow…”

It’s never been a practice of mine, but as I consider the silly sneeze that started me down this road, I remember that many folks reply to that paroxysm of the body with a hearty, “Bless you!”

I think a blessing wouldn’t go amiss right now.

For all of us, living with the pain.

Bless you!

“The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord cause His face to shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His face to you,
And give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:24-26, NASB)

Hungry. And Thirsty

June 26, 2025June 26, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I woke up hungry and thirsty early this morning. That’s unusual for me.

Yes. The early part is unusual, as many of my readers already know. I don’t do mornings well. But the alarm clock in my head (which is about 10 minutes faster than the one in my smartphone) went off about 6:20.

Something else was not normal about the first statement above, as well.

After I showered and shaved, I told the Lovely Lady that I had been dreaming of bacon and eggs right before waking up. And I never eat breakfast; not the conventional breakfast menu, anyway.

Why would I dream of breakfast? Or, be thirsty when I awoke?

Perhaps it has something to do with the reason my alarm was set for 6:30 this morning. The nice lady who called me yesterday from the hospital told me I had to arrive there by 7:30. My appointment for a diagnostic procedure was set for an hour later, but they needed me there early to prepare.

I thought I had been preparing.

I have dreaded the day before this since I found out the event was scheduled. The day before meant no food. All day. Nothing but clear liquids. And, other unsavory preparations I won’t describe here.

Then the nice lady informed me that after midnight, nothing at all was to go into my mouth. Nothing means nothing.

I know. I asked her. No food, no drink, period.

I was hungry and thirsty as I neared the end of my preparation period.

Ravenous, even.

Did I say my internal alarm clock roused me early? I’m thinking that, more likely, it was the beep of the message app on my phone—the arrival of the daily verse, which a friend in Texas shares. He sends it before 6:30.

I read it about 9:00 on every other day. Not today.

I laughed when I saw the words at the break of day this morning.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

What a perfect thought for the day I was headed into! I had time to consider it as I lay on the gurney, awaiting my visit with the surgeon and his team. The nurses and anesthetist teased as I whined plaintively. Cokes and hamburgers, they suggested, were waiting for me at the end of my ordeal.

Do you know what it’s like to be hungry and thirsty? I mean, really hungry and thirsty?

Not just one day without food and then a night without water, but starving and parched. Absolutely parched.

The psalmist knew what it felt like. I won’t print the whole thing here, but his thoughts are found in Psalm 42. You might recall the most familiar words with which he begins: “As the deer pants for the water, Lord, so my soul pants for you…” (Click the reference when you have time to really think about it. The entire psalm is the prayer of one who knows extreme starvation and thirst, but wants nothing more than to eat and drink without end at God’s table again.)

We don’t want that, though.

Like me and my physical appetite, we’re satisfied with the imitations nearby. Hamburgers and pop, when the table is overflowing with delicious and life-giving food, prepared by loving hands.

Money and power, selfishness and depravity, when our Creator made us to walk with Him in righteousness.

We will never be satisfied with the placebos of the world. Pale parodies of the eternal wealth He offers, they can never begin to approach it.

And yet, we who claim to be His followers chase the world. Still.

He says to come and eat food that satisfies. To come and drink of living water from a source that will never run dry.

I don’t need bacon and eggs. Or hamburgers and cola.

There is more.

More.

It was always there.

Who’s ready to eat?

“First we eat, then we do everything else.” (M.F.K. Fisher, American food writer)

“I thirst for God, the living God.
    When can I go and stand before him?
Day and night I have only tears for food,
    while my enemies continually taunt me, saying,
    “Where is this God of yours?”
(Psalm 42:2-3, NLT)

I Have Ears

June 22, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I heard him say it. I just wasn’t listening. Well, I was listening, but I wasn’t hearing.

Wait! That’s not right, is it? How would I hear, but not be listening, and at the same time have the inverse of that be true?

Maybe I could simply tell you what occurred and let you decide. If you’re listening, that is.

My friends and I had talked about many things that day. I really don’t remember what we were discussing at the moment the statement was made. It doesn’t matter. Not really.

“This is the reason I don’t go to Bible studies anymore.”

Not one of us caught it. It was probably because a couple of other voices said words simultaneously.

We said goodbye soon thereafter. Nobody said a word about what he had blurted out.

I was in the car driving home when the words came back to me, and I caught myself thinking, “I wonder what he meant by that?”

I played back the words a hundred times in my head over the next week. I wondered if I had reverted to my old argumentative ways and was the reason for his unhappiness.

When I saw him again, I asked him. And, I listened to his answer. I did.

I think we may say things a little differently from now on. We don’t ever want that sentiment to grow from the scope of bygone Bible studies to include get-togethers with friends. I don’t think it would with this friend, but why would we take the chance?

Friends listen to each other. And sometimes, they change how they interact with each other.

He’s not mad at anyone. We didn’t do irreparable harm.

This time.

Again and again, the Teacher ended His little life-lessons with the words, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:15, Mark 4:9, 23)

I have ears. Arguably, they don’t function as well as they once did, but I have ears to hear.

And yet, I miss the message. Again and again, I miss it.

In recent years, we’ve begun to use the phrase “tone deaf”, meaning that someone is insensitive to the undercurrents in a conversation. Hearing the words, but not understanding what is actually being said.

Guilty.

I am. Tone deaf.

Again and again.

I want to hear the people in my life. It may be that relationships depend on it. Perhaps, even someone’s life.

I want to hear the voice of the Teacher, too. Even more depends upon that.

I’m listening. Again.

Maybe we could all do that.

All ears.

Hearing.

“Maybe I was absent, or was listening too fast.
Catching all the words, but then the meaning going past.”
(from Aubrey, by David Gates & Bread)

So he said to Samuel, “Go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went back to bed.
(1 Samuel 3:9, NLT)

It’s Just Stuff. Really. Stuff.

June 11, 2025June 11, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

“He thinks less than he talks, and slower; yet he can see through a brick wall in time (as they say in Bree).” *

Mr. Tolkien didn’t know me; really, he didn’t. But he described me fairly accurately in the quote above.

I do talk more than I think. Sometimes.

And, fortunately, I can see through the brick wall in front of me. Eventually.

I’ve been in a funk recently. I should mention that I looked up the phrase “in a funk” online to be sure it was still in common enough use for most of my readers to know what it means. The obliging AI response suggests I’ll not have to explain it to very many of you.

I also wondered if I should use the term “woebegone” to describe my state of mind. But then, I’d need to explain the word’s origin from Old English. I might even have to use the definition that Garrison Keillor (a well-known storyteller and humorist) frequently gave for the fictional community he told about. He said the name Lake Wobegon was the native American word for “the place where we waited all day for you in the rain.”

But I’m not sure the description of my state is all that important. I just needed to know why I was in that state, be it in a funk or woebegone, or both of them at once.

Finally, the light has begun to dawn. It took a while, but after a few weeks of wandering in the fog, I think I finally understand why I’ve been unhappy.

The Lovely Lady who lives at my house helped me along the way the other day when she expressed amazement that I’m keeping up with my schedule pretty well. I usually get overwhelmed when there are too many events in a week for me to remember (usually, more than three will do it for me).

What she didn’t realize is that it’s been busy enough lately that this old man has actually learned how to use the calendar app on my smartphone for something other than keeping track of the birthdays of people I love.

As she talked about my schedule, and I thumbed through the past couple of weeks of events, I think I noticed that brick wall becoming a little translucent. I could almost—but not quite—see through it.

The things in my calendar are almost exclusively about possessions—things over which I claim ownership. Some of them are about money and insurance for the things I think I own.

And, with that thought, the bricks become completely transparent.

Why did Jesus say that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven? (Matthew 19:24)

Why is it so hard for me to give up my claim to the stuff of earth? The rich man in the reference above was scrupulous and unswerving in his obedience to God. With the rules and legal requirements, he was.

He just couldn’t turn loose of the things he held.

The storms of a few weeks ago have damaged our house, as well as our vehicles. The unexpected mechanical failure of both vehicles right before has already required a fair outlay of money to remedy. And now, dealing with contractors, insurance adjusters, and repair shops causes stress—a lot of it.

It’s not that the resources haven’t been provided. They have. But somehow, I’ve taken ownership of those resources. And, I don’t want to let go of any of them.

And God said to Moses, “What’s that in your hand?” And when Moses answered that it was a tool of his trade, his staff, God said, “Well, throw it on the ground.” (Exodus 4:2)

I sympathize with Moses. I hear the voice in his head arguing (the same voice is in mine).

“This is all I have for my livelihood. I was counting on this to keep me alive. Why would you want me to let go of it?”

Easy, isn’t it?

Just open your fingers.

Let go.

It was never mine. Never.

Freedom isn’t only about not being under the thumb of someone else. Chains are too often of the invisible sort, and just as likely to be of our own making.

When the stuff of this earth holds us more tightly than the bonds of His love, we are truly in captivity—carrying a burden He never meant for us to shoulder.

I’m better now.

Letting go. Again.

But, I’m realizing there will be more brick walls to see through along the road I’m walking. I could use some help with the next one. And the one after that.

I hope you’ll be willing to help. But could you, maybe, not talk as much as I do?

And, think a little faster?

“One who cannot cast aside a treasure at need is in fetters.”
(Aragorn in The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold.”
(from the hymn, Take My Life and Let It Be, by Frances Ridley Havergal)

*from The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

How Did Those Snakes Get There?

March 18, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I know it’s not the right way to begin an article. NCIS Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs would have said it’s a sign of weakness.

But I want to apologize anyway.

I’m sorry for the photo that accompanies these words. I know the subject matter is triggering for some. Childhood memories. Terrifying stories told by uncaring siblings. Nightmares that can’t be erased from the mind.

I hope the reader will give me a chance to explain.

My grandchildren came to help me in my yard a few days ago. I never raked the leaves from my lawn last fall—never cleaned up the mess from the dying of the year. They knew I was embarrassed by my failure. So they came to help me make it better.

Several hours, they labored with me that day. The monumental stack of black bags full of oak, maple, and pear leaves they left behind bore testament to their hard work. The monumental back-ache I had that afternoon also bore testament to mine.

At some point during the early afternoon, one of my grandsons noticed the snake. It wasn’t huge, just an ordinary garter snake. The harmless reptile was stretched out near a hollow in the ground left when our lilac bush died a couple of years back.

My grandson, brave young man that he is, picked the snake up by its tail and, swinging it back and forth, carried it to the back fence and let it go into the wooded area behind our house.

As I examined the hollow in the ground, I noticed movement near a hole in the center. Our activities had shifted all the leaves that had been providing cover for the den. It soon became clear to us that it was home to more than just the one snake.

The two curious creatures in the photo were wondering what happened to their roof, and perhaps, to their brother (or mother, or sister). We helped them relocate over the next couple of hours, as well.

Later that evening, when I showed the photo to the Lovely Lady, she drew in her breath sharply. She then suggested that it might be best if I kept the photo to myself.

A wise husband follows the advice of his spouse in such matters. I’ve never considered myself especially wise.

I had a reason to share the photo. In my mind, it was a good reason.

Knowing that I have my own terrors about snakes and that I am frequently awakened by dreams (not the good kind) about them, I wondered about the things we give power to.

I wanted to drive home the idea that it is our own foolishness that leads us to give fear a place in our everyday lives. I had a number of examples to add to the snakes. Storms. Wildfires. Financial disasters. War. There are any number of things of which we are afraid.

Things we give power over us.

And, along with the photo, I wanted to write words of condemnation, words of derision. A put-down of the foolishness of heeding the utterings from the terror merchants among us—the doomcasting news media, the fearmongering meteorologists, the pulpit-pounding fire-and-brimstone preachers.

I repent.

I stood in a church building this morning and wept. It wasn’t the first time I had done that in the last day or two. But, it was merely a line of a song that pushed me over the edge today.

“Our call to war, to love the captive soul,But to rage against the captor.”
(from “O Church Arise”, by Townend/Getty)

I wonder if anyone else sees it. And then, I think that probably I’m the only one in my tribe who couldn’t see it before.

And that’s okay. I see it now.

Jesus came to free the captives and to heal the sick. He came to set the oppressed free from their oppression. He clearly declared that was who He was.

I have been comfortable showing them their captivity and their oppression and then have blamed them for their situation.

Why do we rage against the captives—against the oppressed?

Everywhere I look today, I see it. I hear it.

I do it.

I said that worship service wasn’t the only time I had cried recently. I had a conversation with a friend who was frightened by an approaching weather system last week.

My friend’s admission of fear was the only trigger I needed to set me off. I began to rant about the folks who are responsible for building up that fear and about folks who hide in their fraidy holes at the mention of a storm coming.

My rant was cut short as my friend’s eyes were lifted up to mine.

Words fail.

I made my way home, seeing through tears.

Do you know what it’s like to be alone? To be impaired? To feel helpless in the face of danger? To not know if anyone will remember you as they evacuate?

God, make my heart soft. Where it is hard as adamant, make it as tender as Yours.

I’m not a newbie at this following Jesus thing. It’s been a lifetime. And still, I repent. And will need to again.

But, His declaration to the folks in His hometown—the prophetic words from Isaiah, the ones that nearly got him thrown off a cliff by his neighbors—is still true.

For me, it’s true.

And for anyone who comes to Him.

He still sets the captives free.

That Gibbs fellow was wrong, he of television fame; it is not a sign of weakness to apologize. It’s a sign of strength—of resolve.

And I’m still sorry for the snakes.

I think the Lovely Lady will let it slide. This time.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
    that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
   and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
(Luke 4:18-19, NLT [from Isaiah 61:1-2])

“I’m unfinished. I’m unfixed. And the reality is that’s where God meets me, is in the mess of my life, in the unfixedness, in the brokenness. I thought he did the opposite, he got rid of all that stuff. But if you read the Bible, if you look at it at all, constantly he was showing up in people’s lives at the worst possible time of their life.” (Mike Yaconelli)

Still Sitting in the Dark

March 11, 2025March 11, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

She left to go to choir rehearsal without me; the Lovely Lady did. As she gathered up her music, she asked the question.

“What are you going to do while I’m gone?”

It didn’t take long for my answer to come. I say it often, sometimes even in jest. Okay, mostly in jest.

“I’m going to do what I always do when you’re gone. I’ll sit in the dark and wait for you to come home.”

Pitiful, aren’t I? The thing is, I sometimes do just what I said I’d do.

It’s not always because I’m sad or down. Sometimes, I just need to think. And the dark is better for thinking. There are not as many distractions in the dark.

I was going to stay in my easy chair to sit in the dark while she was gone, but then I remembered that my sister had sent a note about the moon earlier. It, Ruler of the Night, decided to come out before sunset this evening. I suppose it decided that if we puny humans need to save the daylight by changing our silly clocks, it could help by shining an extra hour or two before its appointed time.

So, instead of sitting in the dark in our den, I went outside and sat in the dark there.

Except it wasn’t. Dark, that is.

I had been thinking I’d look up at the sky before I came back in. Then I could write my sister a nice little note to tell her the moon was okay.

The sun had gone down over an hour before. But the moon was doing its best to actually give us some daylight. The yard and field behind my house were illuminated like daytime, complete with shadows cast by the still-naked trees.

So, I couldn’t have sat in the dark, even though I wanted to.

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall fall on me,’
Even the night shall be light about me.”
(Psalm 139:11, NKJV)

David, that shepherd boy who became king and poet, also thought he could sit in the dark and let it wash over him. He was wrong.

He was made to live in the light.

I was, too. I think we all may have been.

We don’t always understand what the light is, though. It doesn’t look like we expect it to. Just like the moon tonight, we are often surprised by the light around us and where it comes from.

Earlier in the day, I walked over to a neighbor’s house to talk with him for a minute. I was a little unsettled by the sound of his router. He had been working on another project under his carport for an hour or more.

I wanted to listen to the songbirds.

The cardinals were being all sociable, with half a dozen of them at a time gathering in the oak branches out front—flashes of red in the sunlight everywhere I looked. The finches and wrens fluttered in and out of the holly tree’s foliage, some carrying grass and leaves for the nests they are busily slapping together.

I did. I wanted to listen to the birdsong.

But that noisy router just kept screaming as it ripped into the pieces of wood on the neighbor’s workbench. So, I went to visit with John. I had no intention of grousing at him. I just figured the router would be quiet for at least as long as we visited, and I could hear the birds in that relative silence anyway.

He grinned as I approached, turning off the machinery as I anticipated. Reaching out, he gave me a hug, and then he showed me his project. He is making a container to hold antique serving dishes. Not for himself. A friend, whose grandmother passed away and left her the dishes, was worried they would get broken, so he designed and is making a container for them.

As we talked, he mentioned some things he is storing for another friend. Then, still motioning to the stack under his carport, he told me about a different project he is planning for an acquaintance using the scraps of lumber he has there. In passing, he made the offer to me to take anything I needed from his bounty.

I mentioned one of our widowed neighbors to him, and he told me of going over during a recent storm and bringing her to his house so she wouldn’t be alone while the wind and thunder were raging overhead. And then, as I prepared to head for home, I mentioned that his firewood pile had diminished since I last noticed it. He nonchalantly told about a fellow who had been walking down the street who needed wood for heat, and he had given him most of his supply.

I sit here, and realization hits me; my seventy-something-year-old neighbor isn’t sitting and moping in the dark.

He’s making light! Shining it on everybody he meets, the light of God blazes from his face and fingertips. I wonder if that’s what the apostle Paul meant when he said we were to be lights in the universe. (Philippians 2:15) I think it may have been.

We’re not made to sit in the dark, awaiting whatever or whoever comes next.

We walk in the light as our Savior does. And we have fellowship—communion, if you will—with all others who walk in that light. (1 John 1:7)

I admit it; I haven’t been as successful at shining His light as my neighbor has. I’m not quite as noisy as he is, either, but I’m thinking I should get busy and catch up.

So, no more sitting in the dark.

It’s time to walk in the light.

And maybe—to make a little noise.

“A little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness.”
(Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi)

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.”
(Psalm 139:12, NKJV)

Morning Guilds the Skies

December 18, 2024December 18, 2024 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

As I write this, the sun is shining brightly in the sky outside. I’m sitting beside a hospital bed, listening to the loud beeping of an alarm that should be telling a nurse somewhere to come change an IV medicine bag.

My friends are posting Christmas carols today. I did that earlier this week. Somehow, Christmas isn’t close to my thoughts today.

Even though a niece has started her road trip toward our house from northern latitudes this morning, and a sister-in-law will fly in from eastern longitudes later this week to be with us for Christmas, I find myself contemplating life and its uncertanties on this day.

Sitting in a waiting room of a hospital for nine hours a day ago will do that to a person. Visits with friends who pass by in the hallway—an activity one would expect to lift spirits—allows the shadows to creep into the mind.

A few days ago, I lifted my candle with a thousand other folks and said that the darkness could not overcome the light. I don’t repent of the declaration. It is still true.

Still, the lights of physical life can dim, while the light of Redeeming Grace shines the brighter.

As I waited for the result of a loved one’s surgery yesterday, I learned of a couple of families I know who are facing the loss of their loved ones this holiday season. Somehow, for them, the light won’t seem so bright in this season we call festive.

And, my heart weeps with them.

And, that’s as it should be.

But still, I watched the sunrise this morning before coming to sit beside the bed of my loved one who remains in pain, and I just couldn’t stop the words from welling up.

“When morning guilds the skies
My heart awaking cries,
‘May Jesus Christ be praised.'”

As the day goes on, I don’t doubt that my spirit will flag. Sitting beside a bed is hard work. Elation is not the emotion one feels most in that locale.

But, it doesn’t change the fact that every morning we arise to meet the day is one in which we are blessed by our Creator.

“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not; they are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness.”
(Lamentations 3: 22-24, KJV)

It was true when the words were written. It’s still true today.

Christmas will come. This Advent season builds the anticipation for the day when we’ll celebrate our Savior’s birth.

I’ll sing the carols. I will.

I hope your voice will blend with mine as we give thanks for His good and perfect gifts.

Even if our voices don’t blend all that well, it will be a joyful noise raised up to the God who bends low—the God who hears us, who understands our frailties, and still He came for us.

I’d still like to have the song in my mouth when the evening comes.

“Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning.
Jesus to thee be all glory given.”
(from O Come All Ye Faithful, by John Francis Wade)

“The sun comes up;It’s a new day dawning.It’s time to sing Your song again.Whatever may passAnd whatever lies before me,Let me be singing When the evening comes.”

(from 10,000 Reasons by Myrin/Redman)

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