Strangely Dim

March 3, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

She stopped to talk with us for a moment in the yard where we stood. We knew it was time for them to leave, but he wasn’t with her yet.

I glanced around, noticing the little tyke, his back to the big double doors at the top of the wide ramp leading into our storage building. He seemed to be enjoying a moment of independence, having actually walked up the ramp backwards just minutes before.

But staring at us and, more specifically, at her, his countenance changed as he noticed her starting to walk toward him. Holding his right hand high up in the air, palm outward, his stubborn face told us all we needed to know.

Whatever her plans were for him, he intended to stay at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s for a while longer. His outstretched hand made that doubly clear.

It was inevitable; Over the vociferous objections of the youngster, Mom soon had the little fellow bundled into his car seat and headed for home and an overdue naptime.

Mamas know best.

They do.

I smile, thinking about the tableau in my head. I feel a kinship to the young tyke—and more than the familial one.

I have raised my hand so often over the years of my life.

Many times, like him, it was to my mother. And to siblings. Teachers. Employers. Wife. Even to my own children, as my strength wanes and their wisdom grows.

We want what we want.

Oh. I forgot one.

I raise my hand to my God. Again and again. And not in a good way. Not in worship. Not in the sense of recognition of His love and wisdom.

I raise my hand in rejection, in rebellion, in resistance.

I want what I want.

But I’m thinking tonight about a verse I learned many years ago that seems important to me.

“Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart.” (Psalm 34:4, KJV)

I won’t yield to the temptation to lay out a 3-point sermon on the verse. I feel certain that others can comprehend words they read as well or better than I.

I’ll just say this: I have been a follower of Christ for most of my life, and I’m not sure I am yet “delighting myself in the Lord” completely. Still, I want nothing more than that.

And, when I do delight myself, giving my full attention to who He is and what He has done for me, I find my desires beginning to fall in line with what He knows (and frequently shows me) is His best for me.

But I still hold my hand up at times. I still ask for just a few more minutes of doing what has caught my attention. A few more days of seeking my own good pleasure.

But, more and more as I travel this way, I find myself realizing the good that He has always desired for me.

Always.

And, I think that’s what the journey has always been intended to bring about in us.

As we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and His blood cleanses us from sin. I think the disciple named John wrote about that in his later years.

Why do we continue to act like little children, even into our old age?

I’ve been practicing on another song at Mr. Kimball’s old grand piano recently. Well, I’m working on more than one, but this one is special to me.

Called “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” it was written just over a hundred years ago. The hymn is still a favorite for many, although in recent years, it has largely been reduced to a chorus, the lovely verses having been abandoned by most in this modern day.

As I write this, I’m not quite ready to share a piano performance of the song, although it may not be much longer. Time will tell.

But the lyrics to the old hymn have been whirling around in my head. The little boy’s outstretched hand, indelibly imprinted on my memory, reminds me again tonight of the words.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus;
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.”

I’m looking. And delighting.

The road is long. But there’s room for more along the way. You could look and delight with me.

And, if going home to take a nap is part of the schedule, that’s certainly okay with me.

“Oh soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.”
(from Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, by Helen Howarth Lemmel)

Before the Storm

January 23, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I wore gloves to walk up to the university campus this afternoon. I’d be lying if I said they didn’t help. I’d also be lying if I said my hands felt good.

The wind from the north is piercing. And it promises worse to come. I would know that—even if the wannabe celebrity weather people weren’t shouting the news of the coming winter storm at the top of the Internet’s voice.

The volume of wind was shocking to the face and lungs as I walked toward my goal, struggling more for breath, perhaps, than most. It cut right through my thin gloves and coat with bone-chilling directness, leaving pain and immobility in its wake.

I didn’t think I’d play the piano this afternoon. My fingers were stiff, and a couple of the joints hurt long after I wrapped them around the bowl of warm soup prepared for my lunch.

But my mind has been working on a theme today—a theme of the Father’s love and provision. And, there’s a tune I know…

So I sat at the piano and worked my way—painfully at first—through the notes and chords. It’s a piece I’ve heard most of my life. I played this particular arrangement when I was twelve or thirteen years old, not knowing there were words that went with the tune.

You might know it as Londonderry Air. Or, as Danny Boy. Perhaps (if you were a member of a school band), you know it as Irish Tune from County Derry.

But me—I’m from a church-going background, the son of a (then) lay pastor. We learned church songs. Hymns. Maybe a new song or two from Bill Gaither, or a Southern Gospel Group.

I heard the first words that I knew went with this tune as a teenager. Dottie Rambo wrote them.

“Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise,
For it was grace that bought my liberty.
I do not know just how He came to love me so.
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.

I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary
To view the cross where Jesus died for me.
How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul!
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.” *

When my oldest brother and I played an instrumental version of Dottie’s song in a piano/organ duet in a morning worship service, I couldn’t understand why one man approached me after the service and wanted to know why we were playing a secular song like Danny Boy in church. In retrospect, I agree it is a bit difficult to make out what lyrics are intended to be communicated when just an old grand piano and a Hammond organ are playing the tune and harmony.

It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I learned the lyrics to Danny Boy, and even later, that I understood the words were from a father to his son, going off to war with little hope of his returning.

“Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling.
It’s you, it’s you must go, and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy I love you so.”

If, while you listen to the little tune I’ve recorded, you want to consider either set of lyrics in your head, I have no objection. Truth be told, if you’re thinking about the lyrics, you won’t be listening closely to my stumbling, halting rendition. And that’s okay with me.

Either way, you’ll be thinking of the heart of a father who loves his child so very much and waits with open arms for his or her return.

It’s the heart of a Father who watches and protects us against that day when, all dangers passed and all journeys over, He’ll welcome us into His presence.

He watches and protects against even monster winter storms. And yes, against the occasional twinge of arthritic joints.

And we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

“So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20, NIV)

Resistance is Futile

January 13, 2026 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t intend to post another piano video on Youtube today. I didn’t.

But my friend, Bob, posted a verse from Revelation 22, and I had to comment on it. Had to.

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” (Revelation 22:1)

Water is life.

And mercy. And grace. Especially grace.

That would have been the end of it. Except, my friend, Lisa, from New Zealand (where they are enjoying summer while I run my heater), posted her beautiful poem, and I had to comment on it as well. Had to.
_____________________

BAPTISM

Live each breath as prayer,
carrying the mind,
a paper boat in the heart.

Do not be rushed,
but like the stream
flow steady and clear.

The stream,
with its pools for settling,
for reflecting Heaven’s gaze.

Live as though nothing worries,
is absorbed,
discharged in the current.

Walk in the flow
but sit in presence,
not hurrying,

But allowing the water of life,
with its ebbs and flow,
to minister in refreshment,

To collect
the full weight of things,
to sustain and lead.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
January 2026
____________________

That was it. I was done commenting. And reading. I sat down at the old grand piano, intent on playing. For the calm. For the emotional release. I picked up one of my mother-in-law’s books—the ones she published over 30 years ago, to give folks like me (and her) songs to play that wouldn’t hurt the fingers quite as much.

The first song I turned to was a lovely arrangement of an old, old hymn. About water. And peace. And grace.

I threw up my hands and played the song. Again and again. With tears flowing. And once, as I laughed out loud.

I can’t do the dear lady’s arrangement justice. She would have had a few things to say about my fingering. And the wrong notes. And the counting.

But, in my head, I heard her playing it with her crippled hands and then realized that she doesn’t need these simple arrangements anymore. Freed from their diseased prisons, her fingers flow over the keys (if they have pianos in heaven, and I hope they do) like the water these verses sing of.

Living water flows from the seat where God rules in love and grace, justice and mercy.

Perfect peace. Perfect rest.

Soak it in.

“Like a river, glorious
  Is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious
  In its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth
  Fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth
  Deeper all the way.

Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blest;
Finding, as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest.”

LIKE A RIVER GLORIOUS—1874
Music by James Mountain, Words by Frances Ridley Havergal
Piano arrangement: Viola Whitmore

Music to His Ears

December 12, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After she corrected my counting and fingering, of course.

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

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

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

A Piano in the Path

October 12, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I’m thinking about learning to play the piano.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It is what it is.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But no.

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

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

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

Parts is Parts

May 7, 2025 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I was only mowing the lawn. There was no intent on my part to be an object lesson. I suppose there usually isn’t. Intent, that is.

It just seems to happen.

Over the years, the equipment I use on the lawns (did I say I mow three of them these days?) has gotten much louder. The mower, the trimmer, the leaf blower—all of them—louder.

I don’t hear well anymore. I blame my high school marching band. From fifty years ago. It might also have something to do with other, more recent things. I’m not sure.

I have been to the audiologist. She says I need protection for my ears. I think it’s like latching the barn doors after the cows have escaped, but there is a possibility I could lose still more of my hearing.

So, I have bought some ear protection. Headphones. Bluetooth, they’re called—or some such word. I don’t know how it works. I just know I can play music from the phone in my pocket, and it comes out of the insulated, cushioned flaps over my ears.

I suppose some would argue it’s not much of a solution, because I’ve still got noise going to my ears, but since my days of listening to heavy metal music are a thing of the dim, distant past, there’s not much danger of blowing out an eardrum.

I like to listen to quieter music these days. Praise and Worship, sometimes. Choir music, even. Perhaps, with a few familiar hymns thrown in here and there. I sing along with the dulcet tones coming out of the headphones.

In my own not-so-dulcet tones, I sing—often at the top of my lungs. The little horse I wrote about not long ago is mostly gone, so I’m taking advantage of the opportunities I have.

I don’t sing the lead part, what we usually call the melody. I sing tenor. Or sometimes, alto. I suppose now and again I sing the bass part, as well.

It hit me, as I was riding along on my mower last week. When I’m working outside, singing loudly, people probably can hear me. Not well, but they can hear me.

Have you ever listened to someone singing a harmony part when no one else can hear the accompaniment music or the lead part? It doesn’t sound like anything recognizable at all.

Even if you’ve sung the song all your life, the harmony parts are not what you think of when the song comes to mind.

When I’m out there singing at the top of my lungs, anyone who hears me would likely tell you that the guy on the lawnmower can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

Tone deaf.

But I’m not. Not mostly, anyway.

There’s a point to the words I’m writing. Besides the silliness of the guy riding around his weed patch on the mower, singing loudly.

There’s a point.

Why is it so hard for us to see the big picture?

Why are we so quick to criticize the folks who actually can hear the lead part and sing along with it? Even if we can’t hear the melody ourselves?

The day is coming when the guy mowing the grass is going to blend his part with the lady singing as loudly as she can while driving down the Interstate highway. And the fellows sitting on the corner banging the plastic buckets are going to add their rhythms to the quiet humming of the girl in the subway car.

My part isn’t the same as yours. Even when the parts touch each other in unison during certain passages, we have different strengths—different accents. Some notes will sound dissonant. To some ears, they might even seem to be wrong.

I didn’t write the parts, nor did any human.

Our Heavenly Father wrote the entire work—every part, every note of it. And, like the living, functioning body He intends us to be, we are all necessary—all irreplaceable.

“The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12, NLT)

There are some weird parts of this body. I am one of them. I freely admit it.

You, too?

Well, this weird guy is going to keep singing at the top of his lungs (and sometimes under his breath), practicing with the melody part sounding in his ears.

I hope you will, too.

Just wait until that day when we will hear all the parts together! Heavenly music!

What a day that will be.

Even so…

“I’ve always thought people would find a lot more pleasure in their routines if they burst into song at significant moments.”
(John Barrowman)

“And we will sing out,
‘Hallelujah.’And we will cry out,‘Hallelujah.’We will sing out, ‘Hallelujah.’

Shout it!Go on and scream it from the mountains.Go on and tell it to the masses,That He is God.”
(from All the Poor and Powerless, by David Leonard/Leslie Jordan)

Warm

December 12, 2024 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

I’m sitting at my desk in the converted garage. There’s a space heater beside me blowing warm air directly at my legs and feet.

I’m not shivering. It’s a good thing.

I wouldn’t expect the reader to know it, but I don’t love the cold. I blame my father. He would be happy to accept the blame. When he was discharged from the Navy in the early 1960s, he took his red-headed wife and five youngsters to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to make their home.

Saying, “I want to live somewhere where I can sweat twelve months of the year,” the man settled in for the foreseeable future, there in that place with two seasons—Hot and Hotter.

My resulting thin blood has never thickened, in spite of nearly fifty years in a climate with four seasons per annum.

I realized something recently. It was never taught in Sunday School, back when I was learning about King David—he with the harp, and the sling for which he took five smooth stones once upon a time.

In the book of First Kings, David is old. Well, okay, he is about the age I am now. The book’s first verse says, “King David was very old; even when they covered him with blankets, he could not get warm.” (1 King 1:1, NET)

I’m reasonably certain that, if one were to ask her, the Lovely Lady would tell them that this verse describes me to a T.

I don’t like to shiver.

It is the week in which our local university’s choirs present their Candlelight Service. I have had the pleasure of having a small part in the service for many years, all of them before this while playing my horn with the brass ensemble that you might describe as the “warm-up band.”

Now. There’s a good word!

Warm.

I like that.

Oh—where was I? Oh yes, the Candlelight Service.

This year, I am enjoying singing with one of the choirs, as part of a community group, combined with the University Chorus. I’m certain I was not selected for my great skill. More probably it was just to have a warm body sitting in the bass section.

Oh. There it is again. That word.

Warm.

It is nice, isn’t it?

We arrived, the Lovely Lady and I, for the dress rehearsal last night in the beautiful Cathedral of the Ozarks—having walked the few blocks from our home to the campus. It seemed the huge room was almost as chilly inside as the exterior temperature had been, but I took my coat off anyway.

I wished I hadn’t. Several times during the rehearsal.

When they turned the spotlights on, the young man next to me (knowing I was cold) leaned close and stage-whispered (Well? We were on a stage!) in the general direction of my ear, “Now you’ll get warm!”

Light that makes you warm. Now, there’s a thought.

I have been on stages before when the lights were so hot I soaked the shirt I was wearing. Sweat running down one’s spine is not all that much more comfortable than shivering in the cold. Not much, but some.

The spotlights didn’t make me warm. I think they may have been LEDs. I understand the reasons for using LEDs, but the old incandescent bulbs made better heaters.

But, at one point, the choir director had our group sit while the Cathedral Choir (the first-string, you know) ran through one of their pieces. I thought it might be my imagination, but it seemed that I was less cold.

Then, when they sat down later, I was certain of it. It was warmer when they were standing in front of us. Definitely warmer.

I guess the reader understands by now that I like the warmth. But, I also like it when a concept breaks through the chill and warms my brain, too. Maybe, it’s just the light going on in there that does that.

The young folks standing near us warmed us up.

It’s a time-honored concept. I’m not going to belabor the point, but we warm each other up. By our proximity.

Do you know what the wise men who were advisors to King David suggested for his problem all those centuries ago? They selected a young woman to be his nurse and to lie beside him in the bed to warm him up. And, before your mind can explore that road down toward the gutter, the text is very specific; he was not intimate with her. She simply shared her body warmth to make him less cold. (1 Kings 1:4)

We’re warmer when we are close to folks we love. Or, even just like.

It’s odd; I’ve never thought of the Christmas season as a cold time. I, who have disrespected winter again and again, both in real life and in my writing, always think of Christmas as being a warm time.

Perhaps it’s the closeness of our family at this time of year. And of our friends. And our acquaintances at church—and the coffeeshop—and the Christmas parade.

We share warmth.

With music. And love.

And Joy that shall be to all people.

I’m aware that many don’t have family to get together with. But, the concept works with people in general—getting together to share the joy of the coming of a Savior all those years ago.

Share the warmth.

I’m going to do that with close to a thousand people for each of the next three nights.

I’m already feeling warmer.

You?

“Music brings a warm glow to my vision; thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.” (Haruki Murakami)

“Furthermore, if two lie down together, they can keep each other warm,
but how can one person keep warm by himself?” (Ecclesiastes 4:11, NET)

Messy, Isn’t It?

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

It was a fifth Sunday this week. An event that happens 4 times a year. My church used to have a dinner every time the day rolled around. Nowadays, we get together to sing on the fifth Sundays. Songs by Request, we call it.

The Lovely Lady plays the piano. I usually get roped into leading the singing. Folks in the audience yell out hymn numbers (yes, we pull out the old hymnbooks for the event) and we sing a couple of verses from each request.

Arriving early on Sunday evening, we noticed a microphone on a regular stand near the center of the stage. Knowing that a boom stand would work better to get the microphone close to me, I went looking and found one in the back of the equipment room.

It wasn’t until the end of the first song that I noticed the problem. It might have been the reason the stand was stowed where it had been in the little room off the stage.

As we sang, the weight of the microphone pushed the end of the boom down toward the music stand that held my hymnbook. I pulled it back into position, tightening the adjustment knob to hold it there.

We sang another song. By the end of a couple more verses, the mic was right back where it had been. You understand, don’t you, that a mic has to be close to one’s mouth to be effective at all?

Repeating the process, we soldiered on. But, after another two verses, it was clear the boom stand wasn’t up to the job. Begging the pardon of the waiting audience, I went in search of the original stand. They of course had been entertained by the extracurricular activities, so there was a fair amount of laughter from their seats in the interim.

Amid the laughter, I heard a voice from someone suggesting I prop up the end of the boom with the regular stand. I thought about that for about two seconds and rejected the idea, instead trading out one stand for the other.

I’ve mentioned before that I like things to be orderly, haven’t I? I sort my potato chips into stacks of broken and whole—my M&Ms by color. Don’t tell the Lovely Lady, but I even like my blue jeans hung up by the degree of fading (when they’re not sorted by waist size, that is).

It would be messy to have a regular mic stand sitting under the business end of a boom stand propping it up. I wouldn’t like the optics.

So, I set the microphone atop the regular stand and disposed of the boom behind me, forgetting that the mic wouldn’t be close to my mouth unless I leaned in next to it. Even with it sitting beside my hymnal, instead of behind it, I’d have to adjust my stance to get the sensitivity necessary for clear sound to reach the audience.

For the rest of the hour, I repeated hymn numbers over and over as folks would say, “What number again?” When I asked the fellow with whom I had arranged beforehand to pray a closing prayer, another man nearby touched his chest and mouthed, “Who, me?” because he couldn’t hear me clearly.

Because I wanted to keep things neat, folks were inconvenienced. Perhaps, even embarrassed.

But, there was no mess on the stage!

I know, if you ask any of the good folks who attended, none would remember either the mess or lack thereof. They probably weren’t even annoyed much by the need for me to repeat myself. I may be the only one having any second thoughts about my choices that night.

But, I want to remember.

I want to remember that life is messy. Our interactions with strangers can be awkward. Our exchanges with family members are often without tact and require apologies afterward. We don’t always fit together without fidgeting and rubbing off some rough corners.

I want to remember that sometimes you leave the errant green bean, that somehow escaped from someone’s plate and onto the floor, to be cleaned up later. The joyous cacophony around the dinner table won’t be flawed at all because of a little mess underneath it.

I want to remember that sometimes the notes don’t come out perfectly and my voice cracks when I sing the high ones. And, once in a while, the Lovely Lady plays a natural when it should have been a flat. And, we don’t stop and correct it, because the music is beautiful despite the mess.

Beautiful and messy.

And, that’s all of life, isn’t it? A glorious mess.

Still. I think I’ll check out the mic stand before the next hymn night. It never hurts to plan ahead.

“Life is a journey that must be traveled, no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.” (Oliver Goldsmith, Irish novelist/poet)

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.” (1 Peter 4:8-9, NIV)

To Walk and Not to Fall (It Isn’t as Easy as It Looks)

November 8, 2023November 8, 2023 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

I told the Lovely Lady that I probably would never write again.

“I think the well’s run dry. I’ve been struggling to find something to write about and there is no more. Nothing.”

She laughed and went back to her reading. She knows me.

I’ve been here before.

Still. . .

As I sat, head in hands, a thought hit me. I should search on my phone. Occasionally I write notes there to be ready for times such as these.

I would check there.

Nothing. Well, nothing I had saved recently.

I went back further; way back to the year of Covid. You remember. No school. Working from home. No toilet paper.

I saved two thoughts on the same day in March of 2020, the month the lockdown started in the USA.

They make no sense—there on the screen without any context. Like raw dough lying on a table before it is shaped into what it is to become, it’s difficult to visualize a purpose.

“Walking isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“Stingy with the rotten notes, but generous to a fault with the beautiful, sonorous ones.”

I have no memory of writing either sentence. In an attempt to remember the reason for the words, I cast my mind back a few years.

I remember those long walks. There wasn’t much else to do, so I walked. Often by myself—sometimes with her. Every day. Miles, one foot in front of the other.

Easy. Walking was easy.

Well, maybe the other one, then. Rotten notes. Beautiful and sonorous ones. Stingy and generous.

Oh yes! I remember hours of playing my horn. The French horn, that ill wind that nobody blows good.

There were lots of rotten notes. Not so many beautiful, sonorous ones.

Somehow, as I looked at the words on the little screen before me, the two statements began to coalesce, two separate thoughts becoming one theme.

Maybe walking isn’t all that easy. I don’t remember learning to do it. I have watched many babies who are in the process, though.

No; it’s not as easy as it looks. Not nearly. Babies fall, over and over. They get up to try again. Sometimes after falling, they stay where they are, crying. Parents and grandparents lift them up, comforting them as well as coaxing them to try again.

It’s hard work, this walking thing! And somehow, although there are a few years in between when we don’t worry about our walking ability, many aging humans will experience times when the difficulty of staying upright hits hard again (pun not intended).

A friend wrote today of a fall induced by a necessary medication. She is in pain now.

Walking isn’t as easy as it looks.

But then, not much we do is. Practice and experience lend themselves to a certain level of skill.

I spoke about the music notes, remembering my own difficulty. During that same time period, a famous cellist named Yo-Yo Ma began, in his own isolation, to offer video recordings of himself playing solos on his beautiful instrument. Just him. And his cello.

Now, there’s a man who is stingy with rotten notes—who is generous with the beautiful, sonorous ones. What lovely recordings he produced for the world during those difficult days!

Effortlessly, he would draw the bow across the strings, evoking a tonality with no hint of discord. Without difficulty, his fingers found the exact placement for each note to sound precisely on pitch. Every single note.

He made it seem so easy.

Inspired by his example, I played my horn at home, albeit generous with the sour notes and giving freely of bobbled attacks. In fairness, there were some beautiful, sonorous notes to be heard. Just not as often as I could have wished.

It is not only walking that’s not as easy as it appears. Skilled production of anything worthwhile takes practice—diligent application of ourselves to the thing we want to accomplish.

We know that. With every new thing, we know that.

Coloring inside the lines was once impossible for most of us. Holding a pencil to write our letters—nearly unthinkable.

The list is unending. Riding a bicycle. Learning to whistle. Combing our own hair. Baking a cake. Those don’t even begin to scratch the surface.

And yet, knowing nothing comes easily, we still look enviously at others in their areas of expertise and wonder why we can’t do what they make appear so elementary.

We become discouraged when we fall short, seldom remembering that practice and repetition are what made them better at it.

And we forget that we are not performers, showing off for an adoring public, but servants of a Loving Creator who knows us and our frailties.

He knows us.
He knew us before we were born.
He knows how many hairs are on our heads.
He has counted the tears we’ve shed while on our journey.

We walk for Him.
We play our music for Him.
We complete our tasks at work for Him.
We love our neighbor for Him.

None of it is as easy as it looks.

But the music is sweet. It is stingy on the clinkers. It is generous beyond belief in its beauty and fullness.

And, as we journey here, there are others who walk alongside us and help us to stay upright.

Not easy, but rewarding beyond any compensation this world could ever offer.

There may be more to write about, after all.

But, don’t tell that to the Lovely Lady.

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord and not for people. (Colossians 3:23, NASB)

Make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
(Psalm 98: 5-7, NIV)

Music Interrupted

September 25, 2023 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The old Steinway piano isn’t well. Not at all. I’m thinking about putting it out on the curb in a couple of weeks when the next community clean-up comes around.

Well, that’s grabbed the attention of at least one of my readers! My most faithful editor and resident pianist comes to mind instantly. Perhaps others may be shocked to read of my piano-disposal fantasy, but the Lovely Lady would be most unhappy.

But, it is just that—a fantasy. I have labored too long and often on the old instrument, as have others (some no longer living) who I know and love. Still, I don’t savor the times when the case parts are lying on the nearby couches, and the action, held securely in a purpose-designed cradle, rests on the dining room table awaiting my periodic repairs.

The old piano is nearing one hundred fifty years old now. I sometimes wonder if Steinway of the nineteenth century had a scheme similar to the auto industry in the late twentieth century (and cell phone manufacturers of the twenty-first, seemingly) in place. The popular name for it a few years ago was built-in obsolescence—a scenario designed to sell future models when the current model quits working after a year or two.

We’re not participating. I’m sure the folks at Steinway haven’t noticed at all, but we are still proudly utilizing the cutting-edge technology of 1879 in our living room on a daily basis.

Just not this week.

It’s happened before. I told you it was sick, didn’t I? I believe this old piano has what we call a chronic illness or condition.

The dictionary defines chronic as persistent or recurring often.

The definition fits this old thing to a T. Several times a year (more often than my chronic asthmatic bronchitis rears its ugly head), I have to pull the action, setting it on the old dining room table (stretched out a bit to accommodate the length), prepared to reglue flanges and make adjustments to the action’s action (if you will), adding spacers and bending damper wires—sometimes even replacing worn out and broken jack springs.

Chronically sick.

We don’t tend to keep things that are chronically defective in our homes anymore, do we?

Come to think of it, chronic defects are the reason our little town offers its residents the semi-annual clean-up week I mentioned in the first paragraph above. We have too many items lying around that don’t perform up to their original capability and we replace them without much more than a moment’s consideration. Washing machines, microwaves, computers, furniture—you name it, we will throw it away and replace it in a heartbeat if it fails to meet our expectations.

This is not a diatribe against our contemporary society; more than that, it’s a statement on our human nature. We don’t have the patience to deal with deficiencies. We want dependability. Anything that doesn’t conform has no place in our day-to-day realities.

I wonder if the reader is aware that we’re not just talking about our stuff anymore. It is the way these conversations seem to go, is it not?

One minute we’re clearly talking about an old piece of furniture and suddenly, we seem to be caught up in a deeper discussion than we ever considered.

Perhaps we’ll just go with the current for a moment or two.

May I make a bold statement?

Our Creator doesn’t believe in built-in obsolescence. He never has.

From the beginning, His plan was for redemption. For renewal. For lifting up.

We seem to be advocates of the Nancy Sinatra school of deportment, promising that one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you. All the while, our loving Father promises to seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak (Ezekiel 34:16, ESV).

We, who follow Christ, are specifically told to follow suit. It’s not a suggestion, although we often treat it as such.

Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted; forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32, NLT)

And, Peter came to his Master, asking Him how many times he had to repair that old Steinway piano before he could toss it out. (Matthew 18:21, NLT)

And, the Teacher replied that he should do it as many times as the notes wouldn’t play in tune or refused to make any sound at all (or even if it was only the sustain pedal that was malfunctioning).

Okay. That’s not actually the way the conversation went, but the reader will get the general meaning.

God didn’t make any trash.

While we were broken and refusing to make His music, He sent His Son to die for us. To redeem us. To lift us up. To fix what was broken.

When that Steinway is repaired and tuned, it makes lovely music. Music that will bring tears of joy and previews of Glory.

I’ll be here again sometime soon. Making repairs. You can count on it.

The issues are chronic. But the response to treatment is glorious.

Music will be heard. Again.

Beautiful music.

Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.
(from Rescue the Perishing by Fanny J Crosby, 1869)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

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