I Probably Should Wash My Hands Before Offering that Cup of Cold Water

September 6, 2021 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

Photo by Grace Nast. Used by permission.

“God, let who I am show You to the world around me today.”

I don’t really know why I wrote the words. Someone I don’t know asked a question on a popular social media site recently. For some reason, I needed to answer.

Her question was, “What’s your go-to one-sentence prayer these days?”

That was it. My go-to prayer.

I would have told you I say it because I really don’t need anything else from Him. No money. No new car. No vacation in Spain.

But the truth is, I do need something from Him. I need that.

That. I need the world to see Him when they look at me.

It’s not that I’m so pious. I’m not. It’s not that I’m so righteous. I’m not.

We pray because we need. There are things we don’t have that we need.

We pray because we know He has what we need.

And, I need that. And, I don’t have it. But, He does.

This afternoon, my young friend posted the photo I shared above. Did you see it? No—I mean, really see it? Maybe, you should look at it again. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Take a few minutes.

I looked at the photograph my friend had taken and I gasped. Really. And, then I teared up.

Perhaps it’s only me. I know I’m not always normal. Perhaps, never completely normal. But, still…

The clarity of the scene, the glass of pure water, the light, the reflection, the hint of shadow—all of it hit me right in the midsection. The imagery took my breath away.

That’s what I need—the answer to my repetitious prayer. Pure, cold cups of water, reflecting the light of the One we serve, offered from the clean hands of one who follows Him.

The imagery of Scripture is also unmistakable.

Let your light so shine before men…
This treasure we have in vessels of clay…
Whoever gives a cup of cold water in my name…
Among whom you shine like stars in the universe…

I mentioned what I lacked before, didn’t I? Was it clear that my need is to faithfully and consistently show who God is to a world that doesn’t know Him?

Is it clear that I have already seen that Light, that Love, that Grace myself? I have.

I just need to show it. One would think it would be simple enough.

Attached to the side of the refrigerator in my house, there is a water dispenser. On the counter below, there is a glass. I use both frequently, drinking cool, clean water I have taken right from the source.

The Lovely Lady who lives at my house asks me once in a while if she should wash the glass when she’s cleaning up the kitchen. My answer is always in the negative.

When I drink from it, I rinse it out before replacing it in its place by the fridge. Sometimes, I even spray a bit of dishwashing detergent inside and wipe it around before rinsing it out and setting it back down.

If I were to offer anyone else a drink from that glass, I assure you, they would decline. Perhaps, a change is called for.

Here’s why:

The water is clean. It comes from a city facility that is certified and tested regularly. It is filtered at the dispenser, removing any impurities the pipeline might have added to the already purified and certified liquid.

The inside of the glass is clean. I wouldn’t drink from it if it weren’t. As far as I’m concerned, it is a safe vessel from which to imbibe. And yet, even the Lovely Lady herself would refuse to drink from that vessel.

I simply don’t bother about the outside. And frequently, when I grab the glass to dispense water, my hands are grimy from physical labor. Often, they are so sweaty from exercise, I almost drop the glass.

I have dirty hands. The outside of the glass can be revolting. Detestable. Repulsive.

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
And who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood
And has not sworn deceitfully.
(Psalm 24: 3-4, NASB)

I’m not certain I can make this distinction and not get a little pushback from a theologian or two, but it seems to me there’s a reason the psalmist suggested we needed both clean hands and a pure heart.

I think it’s possible, perhaps even probable, that one is a gift—the product of all-encompassing grace—and the other is an expectation of the individual who has experienced that grace.

The Teacher, tested by the religious hypocrites of His day when they brought a woman who had been caught in adultery to Him, embarrassed them so much they slunk away without a word.

He, however, had a bit more to say to the woman:

Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
(John 8:10-11, NLT)

He gave her two precious gifts. Two.

Grace, resulting in a clean heart.

Expectation. The opportunity to live her life with clean hands.

He gives us those same gifts, as well. To us, who have fallen short of His glory through sin, He offers the unequaled treasure of His grace that washes our hearts clean.

And, He gives us the great honor of sharing that grace with a world wandering in darkness. We have the privilege of sharing His pure water, His great treasure, with our own hands that are no longer sullied by sin and selfishness.

The only way His light shines through us to the world is if we offer His free gift with hands that don’t distort and won’t detract as He shines through us.

I think I’ll continue to pray the prayer. The day is coming when I won’t need to anymore.

And, don’t worry. If you come to my house to visit someday, I’ll offer you a clean glass from which to drink.

I’ll even wash my hands first.

For, look, darkness covers the earth
and deep darkness covers the nations,
but the Lord shines on you;
his splendor appears over you.
(Isaiah 60:2, NET)

“He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.” (from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Still My Daily Driver

March 26, 2021 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

“I just need a vehicle that’ll get me from Point A to Point B.”

I made the casual statement while sitting at a streetside table at the local coffee shop the other day. Three other fellows, also in their sixties, were at the table with me.

They didn’t laugh. Utilitarianism is important to my generation. Functionality trumps aesthetics for us. But, perhaps that’s not universal, even in this group.

“Well, I’m thinking that, for my dad’s sake, I need to buy an old Chevy pickup and park it in my driveway, even though I’ve been driving that Dodge for nearly 20 years,” one fellow said.

We laughed. His father, dead many years now, was a Chevy man. His brother is also a Chevy fanatic, refusing to own any other make of car or truck. A number of his friends are diehard Chevy owners, eschewing any other make, either American or foreign.

With a sheepish grin on his face, he explained. “Dad would have been really disappointed in me for driving that Mopar trash. Maybe if I just had a Chevy parked in my driveway, I could get back some self-respect before I die.”

We laughed again.

He didn’t even want to drive the truck! He only wanted people to see it in his driveway.

My brain always chooses the rabbit trail when it’s offered. Without fail. This time was no exception.

I don’t know how much later it was in the conversation when I became aware I was still sitting with my friends. And, that they were waiting for a response from me.

I had no idea what to say, so I just blurted out, “Don’t ask me! I drive a Toyota!”

They laughed, not in a derisive way, so it must have been an appropriate retort for the moment. The conversation carried on, but I was still lost in my thoughts, and it went on without me.

Why do we live the way we do?

Why do we want folks around us to think we live differently than that?

If we don’t respect the choices we’ve made, why do we stick to them?

You do understand there are no trucks on the rabbit trail I’m following, don’t you?

I want to use the tools that are going to guarantee the achievement of the goals I’ve set for myself. And, in the process, I don’t want to have to utilize decoys to gain respect from those walking the path with me.

And somehow, this doesn’t seem much like a rabbit-trail anymore, does it?

So many today have looked into their past and have decided, since the “long obedience in the same direction” that Nietzsche (and more recently, Eugene Peterson) described is too difficult to maintain—and much too slow, they will change vehicles and take the shortcut.

Their faith in God is the first casualty in the surrender. The lifestyle of holiness follows in close order. Before you know it, the daily driver is hardly recognizable at all.

And yet, the vehicle they park in their driveway—for the neighbors to see—is the same one they’ve always claimed to love and depend upon.

They just don’t drive it anymore.

I want to say that would never be true of me. I want to say that.

But, once in a while, I do wonder what it would be like to sit in those luxurious seats and take a spin ’round the countryside in that sleek new model. I do.

I might have even taken a test drive.

Once or twice.

A short one.

But, as our friend the Preacher would say, here is the conclusion I’ve come to:

We’ll never reach the goal we have set out to reach in that fake, made-up vehicle the world calls truth. Never.

As a daily driver, anything but God’s truth is completely unreliable and will leave us stranded. Of that, there is no doubt.

I know it doesn’t look modern and sleek; the paint may be faded and chipped, and the dirt from all the miles still clings to its surfaces.

Still, I think I’ll stick with what got me this far.

The old daily driver’s got a good few miles left in it, yet.

It starts every time, too. Every single time.

And, I can still park it in the driveway.

Every person has a different view of another person’s image. That’s all perception. The character of a man, the integrity, that’s who you are.
(Steve Alford ~ American basketball coach)

Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works… (Revelation 2: 4-5a, NKJV)

Worthy of the Calling

August 30, 2020 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 3 Comments

I made the mistake of replying to a friend’s post today, believing I was helping her feel better about her state of mind regarding the upcoming election. Before I knew it, I was defending my position to someone I don’t know. I would say a total stranger, but she is a follower of Christ. That means she’s family.

I didn’t get angry. She didn’t get angry. We both made two or three replies, parting on amicable terms. I’ll pray for her. She’ll pray for me. Blessings.

Still, I’m not pleased with myself. Tonight, I can’t help wondering why we, the Family of God, are wasting our time arguing/discussing/disputing about things as unimportant as who is to be the next president of our country. Or, whether our Governor has the right to make us wear a mask.

Unimportant?

Yes. Unimportant.

I know someone will say it. So, I’ll say it first:

“But, we’re in a battle for the soul of our country!”

I don’t disagree. But, if we’re in a battle for our country’s soul, why aren’t we fighting with weapons that have a chance to win the soul?

Why aren’t we in our closets praying? Why aren’t we at the prisons and jails visiting? Why aren’t we in the neighbor’s back yard working side by side with them? Why aren’t we on the main roads and back roads, compelling them to come share our table?

Where are the cups of cool water? The literal ones for the heat and the figurative ones that slake the thirst with Living Water.

I promise you, we won’t win the soul of our country by shouting at every person foolish enough to expose their opposing viewpoint. It won’t be won by posting nasty, hateful memes that demean and belittle folks with whom we disagree. It won’t be won by shouting about our rights and repeating our claims day after day.

Someone suggested earlier today that we should stop doing these things because the people we were demeaning and clashing with might be fellow believers. I think the bigger concern is, what if they’re not?

What if they’re not?

What if the very people we are fighting here are the ones we have been called to love? (They are.)

What if the very people we are calling names and demeaning are the ones we’re supposed to be telling of God’s grace and mercy? (They are.)

They are!

How is this who we have become?

How do we dare to throw the love of Christ back in His face and defy Him to do anything about it?

The Apostle Paul, in prison for the very cause we claim, begged us to walk in a manner that is worthy of our calling. Begged us.

It’s time for us to start. Doing that.

That walking worthy thing.

Today. This week. This year.

Now.

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. (Matthew 5:14, NIV)

Changing the Future

September 20, 2017September 20, 2017 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 3 Comments

Our past meets our future in this place we call the present.

The words, I wrote a few years ago. They still rattle me every time I re-read them.

Well? Why wouldn’t they? The concept is enough to mess with anyone’s brain. Momentarily, at least.

We like to keep things in boxes. Neat. Logical. With labels to identify the contents.

Some of us are more interested in keeping things in boxes than others. I freely admit it.

“Go to the store with me, will you?”

The Lovely Lady stood at the door, notebook in hand and ready to buy groceries for the week. I, wise husband that I’ve become in nearly forty years of practice, quickly agreed. Cheerfully.

There is a hierarchy at the grocery store. It’s not complicated. She puts things in the cart and marks them off her list.

I push the cart. That’s it—just push the cart.

Oh, wait. There is one other thing I do.

I sort the items in the cart.

Don’t make that face! You’re rolling your eyes too, aren’t you?

That’s just what she does when I start sorting. Well—it’s what she used to do when I started. She’s come to expect it now.

If there were boxes in the cart, I’d use them. There aren’t, so imaginary quadrants must suffice.

Fresh veggies go at the back of the cart, heaviest on the bottom (potatoes will smash bananas). The Lovely Lady wants to keep me around (for sorting things, I suppose) as long as possible, so there are more fresh veggies than anything else.

From there, logic rules. Canned goods go in one section, boxed in another. All the refrigerated items stay together. It keeps them colder; I’m sure it does.

Fragile items, such as chips (not nearly as many of these as there should be) and eggs, go in the flip down compartment that once served to corral our children.

It’s a good system. I like it.

The problem comes when we get to the checkout counter. I am careful—fanatical, some might say—about keeping the items in the same quadrants as they progress to the checker. What would they think of me if I sent the milk down the conveyor belt beside the flour?

And, now we come to it. The fly in the ointment, so to speak. The bee in my bonnet, if you will.

The checker, somehow oblivious—utterly—to my care and prudence, callously snatches each item from the belt, swiping it past the scanner and tosses it, willy-nilly, into the empty, waiting cart beside her station.

Boxes are jumbled at angles with cans. Potatoes smother celery and toilet paper. The milk, heavy enough to be placed on the bottom of the cart instead of tossed, is at the front of the conveyance while the meat is at the back, both warming much too fast for my overloaded sense of order.

Maybe we should move on. Shall we?

Our past meets our future in this place we call the present.

Past meets future in this place called the present. Click To Tweet

I’m not obsessive-compulsive about everything in life. Still, I have, for many years, considered what I would like to see when I look back over my life on that last day. To that end, I have attempted to keep a semblance of order in how I have lived.

What was it Mr. Shakespeare said? What’s past is prologue was the phrase, I believe. The meaning is clear.

What we have done in the past leads us, without fail, into the future. The nano-second of the present, a mere blink of the eye, will forever affect what is to come.

My trip through the grocery is the past. Plans, all laid carefully, were executed flawlessly.

All it took was just seconds—an instant in which I lost control—and the present had altered the future catastrophically.

Hmmm. I think perhaps—for this example anyway—one could call that hyperbole.

Regardless, the point is clear enough, is it not?

There’s an old maxim, not quite in line with Scripture, but still it comes to mind. It says the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I think, if the road to hell is paved with them, the road to heaven is, at least, littered with them.

We know what the road to heaven is paved with; it’s paved with the grace of our loving Savior.

It is specifically because of His great love for us that I want to be able to look back and know I have journeyed in a faithful way, leaving a clear record for those who walk the way after me.

But, in the most crucial moments, it all gets jumbled and messed up in a colossal manner.

My past is introduced to my future with moments I am ashamed of. Again and again.

Surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), I’m chagrined. Mortified.

I’m a failure.

But then, I look into those faces, the witnesses I mean. For one or two who are named, there is no record of failure. The rest of them? Failures, every one!

Every one.

Failures who fell flat on their faces. Liars, con men, drunks, womanizers, bad parents, murderers even.

But, they got up (or were picked up). They took the next step. And the next one.

I can do that. I’m still breathing.

I think it’s time to be walking again.

That way. Following His lead.

The future is still waiting.

I can’t change the past.

The next moment will be the present.

Here it comes.

Ready?

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
(Sir Winston Churchill ~ British Prime Minister ~ 1974-1965)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
(Hebrews 12:1 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

The Wind Blows

March 23, 2016March 23, 2016 ~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Ting, ting, ting. Ting, ting, ting.

All along the two-mile course I wandered with the Lovely Lady, I heard them.

At first, it was just a subliminal awareness—no thought given to the sound whatsoever. The further we went though, the more noticeable became the sound.

At one point, the tone lowered into the bassier voice and, with a start, I was immediately aware. The clang, clang, clang! of the long pipes flailing at the ends of cords was unmistakable.

This was no gentle ripple of sound, no pretty chord voiced to calm the heart as a gentle breeze moved the pipes. The gusts of wind that tore violently at our clothes and hair also gripped the silver tubes of the wind chimes and sent them almost horizontal in their arcs, banging against the wooden clapper in the center and then against each other, almost certainly denting the soft metal in the process.

Of course! That sound was coming from the wind chimes hanging on porches. Small ones as well as large, made of brass and aluminum—perhaps even of ceramic glass.

The different tones came from different sizes and different designs. The delicate ting, ting, ting, came from the little short tubes, the low-pitched bong, bong, bong, from the longer pipes and larger bore of the massive chimes several homes boasted.

Not one of them was silent on this day.

Not one.

The wind whipped in gusts and eddies around the houses and porches, spinning and swinging the chimes in a constant cacophony of sound.

I was walking beside the loveliest walking companion one could ask for. She was telling me of something the grandchildren had done earlier that day, but suddenly I couldn’t hear her for the bells and the violent wind in my head.

I may have been striding down the walking trail in my current hometown, but my mind was over eight hundred miles and nearly fifty years away, on the front porch of my family home.

The wind whipped and howled then, too. There was rain in this wind, and danger.

The ten-year-old boy standing on that screened-in porch liked the danger part.

Finally. A hurricane.

All about him the trees waved in the storm like giant windmills, their limbs gyrating first one way, then another. The sound the tall palm trees made as fronds rattled against each other was almost deafening.

The chinaberry trees, with their fragile limbs bent almost to the ground, cracked and groaned. The bougainvillea bushes merely shuddered and leaned parallel to the earth, looking for all the world as if they were going to be uprooted and take flight at any moment.

The howling of the wind filled his ears. Even with all that racket, the clang, clang, clang, of the two sets of wind chimes at the other end of the porch cut through his consciousness.

The noisy things were flying wildly in the wind, making almost as much commotion as the trees outside. He didn’t understand why the red-headed lady who raised him had left them out, when they had picked up everything else that could blow away outdoors.

Most days, his mother loved the sound of the chimes as the breeze moved them. On any other day you might choose, the Gulf breezes blew steadily from the east, coming off of the coast. Then, the chimes made their pleasant tinkling sound constantly.

Noisy things! It certainly wasn’t pretty now. Surely they couldn’t even hold together through this monster storm. Maybe he should take them down.

Suddenly, a yell came from the kitchen, at the back of the house.

“The hackberry tree is going over! Come look at this!”

He ran in the front door and through the living room to watch the destruction of the trees behind and beside the house, the front porch—and the chimes—temporarily forgotten.

In the backyard, limbs waving and roots still attached, the huge old hackberry tree he loved climbing went over on its side. Next, the chinaberry tree, in the yard beside the bathroom window, split right down the middle. Half of it stayed upright, the rest toppling to the ground, still hanging by a layer of bark on its thick trunk.

He had seen enough.

Danger was okay when all it did was threaten. When real damage came to pass, it was time to get things back to normal. He was ready for this terrible hurricane to be over.

It was the next morning when he finally wandered onto the front porch again. Funny. The wind was back to a breeze, prevailing from the east, gently moving the chimes.

Ting, ting, ting. Ting, ting, ting.

It was as if the storm had never happened at all. But no. He looked around.

The ground underneath the palm trees was piled with fronds which had sailed off in the wind. There were branches and leaves everywhere.

He stepped outside the door and saw the chinaberry bereft of half of its top. A look around the neighborhood showed debris everywhere and water standing in the ditches.

No. There had been a storm all right. It wasn’t just a dream.

Still, the little resonant tubes tapped against the clapper and each other gently. Their sound was prettier than he could remember it, perhaps because he had seen what they had gone through less than twelve hours before.

They sang out their chords once again, as if nothing could ever silence them.

Perhaps nothing ever could.

Recently, I was in the home of a man I know to help him move some furniture. We finished the job and I looked around. Over in the corner of the living room hung a huge set of wind chimes.

Huge.

Hanging inside.

I asked my friend about them.

Why were they inside? Surely they never got any wind in there?

He smiled as he flipped a switch nearby. I could see no fan, but I heard the fan motor begin to spin and felt the breeze moving slightly. Gently, very gently, the huge brass tubes began first to sway and then to undulate toward the clapper.

Bong. I heard the quiet, low pitch once and then again. With a certain regularity, the bong, bong, bong began to repeat, as the different pitches gently sounded.

I wondered aloud.

“Can you make them louder? Does the fan go to a higher speed?”

He looked at me as if I were mad.

“Do you realize how much these chimes cost? It was hundreds of dollars!”

I shook my head in amazement.

The man refused to place the wind chimes where they could ever actually catch the wind, because he was afraid that they would be damaged.

He would never allow them to do what they were designed to do—sound their chords deep and loud, swinging wildly in the unpredictable wind—for fear that they might be dented.

Wind chimes are meant to be in the wind.

They are made to catch the breeze and hit against a clapper, the beautiful sound being drawn out because of the adversity. If they experience no hardship, they never perform as they were designed. Never.

The more distress they experience—the more affliction—the sweeter they sound.

The individual chimes are anchored securely to keep them attached to the whole unit. Each one is painstakingly tuned to the correct pitch that complements the others.

The beautiful individual tones blend to make a gorgeous chord as they are tapped and—yes—battered by the clapper and by each other.

Sound familiar?

Do you realize we need to experience hard times—difficulties in our lives—to bring out the beauty hidden deep inside of us?

The harmony and the pure tones that need to be heard in our world will only come as we are in the public view, battered and beaten as we are, doing exactly what our Creator intended for us.

He made you what you are!

He made me what I am!

And, He attached us together to make music for the world to hear and be amazed by. We are firmly anchored to Him and to each other.

Sure, it’s not always a gentle breeze that plays around us.

The storms of life will send us swirling around and around, to clatter and clang for a little while. And then, the Master says Peace; be still to the storms, and the gentle breezes return.

The music is still sweet to Him.

The world, too, is listening as they wander, and stumble, and scramble past.

I wonder—is the wind chime out on the porch where they can hear it? Or, have we squirreled it away—in safety—out of the wind, to keep it from damage and distress?

Is there any music for them to hear?

I hope it’s a sweet sound in their ears, too.

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.
(Thomas Carlyle ~ Scottish philosopher ~ 1795-1881)

Sing for joy to God our strength;
shout aloud to the God of Jacob!
Begin the music, strike the timbrel,
play the melodious harp and lyre.
(Psalm 81:1-2 ~ NIV)

Tip-toeing and Holding My Breath

February 17, 2016February 17, 2016 ~ Paul Phillips ~ 7 Comments

The house is old and the floor creaks.

Since I was old enough to notice such things, I’ve not lived in any other kind of house. The sneaky kid I was at seven years of age learned where the noisy spots were. When one was stealthily slipping out at nap time, that information was key in avoiding detection by lightly sleeping parents.

In much the same way, the sneaky grown-up I am at nearly sixty years of age has learned where the noisy spots are in my current house, as well. That information is key in maneuvering through the downstairs rooms quietly when the Lovely Lady is sleeping upstairs. This is not so much because I want to escape detection, as it is that I don’t want to disturb her rest.

I have a suspicion that I am not any more successful at it in these later years than I was as a child. Still, an attempt must be made. If one is to wander the house late at night, it won’t do to have the other inhabitants lose sleep because of it.

In all my years of living in creaky old houses, I’ve never encountered a ghost. Oh, the floorboards pop on their own sometimes, and there are unexplained noises in the night. Somehow, I think we can eliminate ghosts from the causes there. No shimmering essence has ever brushed past me on the way down a hallway, and certainly, I’ve never heard the clank of chains.

But, in my head? That’s a different story. My head is rife with ghosts. Some of them are as kind and benevolent as one could wish. A few are not remotely like that—all screams and anger. Still others, I barely recognize—long forgotten memories from the dim past.

Tonight, I’m sneaking around on the creaky old floors in my head, in much the same way as I do in the house. It is an equally vain attempt at not awakening the ghosts who are usually resting there.

Somehow, being ill has that effect on my thoughts. Perhaps it’s the not-so-subtle reminders of my mortality—the lack of breath, the pain in my joints, the sleepless nights—that lead to the tiptoe walk though the past.

So I said to him——I said——that’ll never go through the door.

My grandfather died the year I graduated from high school, but still I hear his voice, telling another of his stories. Always—always, they were punctuated with spaces. They were spaces in which he caught his breath.

When he walked from the front porch to the kitchen, he always stopped at the desk behind his easy chair. Every time. Leaning with his big hands on the edge of the desktop, he breathed deep, his powerful chest muscles expelling the bad air and drawing in good.

As I tried to talk with the Lovely Lady today and gasped for air, mid-sentence, I heard his voice in my head. Then again, I walked from the den to front door and had to stop and lean on the buffet for a moment and I saw the old man standing there at the desk.

Experience tells me I will breathe freely again very soon. But, these moments, these brief seasons of walking through the old, creaky house remind me of folks who’ve gone before—people I have loved and who have loved me.

They remind me of other things, as well.

My grandfather, he of the interrupted sentences, was a storyteller. He loved a good story. More than that, he loved being surrounded by people who listened to the stories he told. The gaps for breathing, at first an annoyance to both the teller and the listener, soon became room for thought and reason for suspense. A good storyteller uses the tools with which he is provided.

Grandpa was a good storyteller. Health impediment or not, he was going to tell his stories.

The thing is, I’m a storyteller too. You might say, it’s in my blood. Kind of like the lung issues. You see, genetics plays a part in my pulmonary problems. From my grandfather to my son, the males in my family have experienced similar problems of varying degrees. Without a say in the inheritance, we have each passed down the frailty to the succeeding generation.

May I talk about the storytelling for a moment? I promise to be nearly succinct. (Scroll down the page to see if I’m being truthful—I’ll wait.) The reader will have to be the judge of whether the time is well spent.

Did you know our Creator commanded us to be storytellers? And, He expected us to pass the love of telling stories down through the generations? His instructions—oddly enough, passed through another storyteller—were clear.

Parents tell your children. Tell them in your home, as you’re hiking on a trail, and when you’re in the shopping centers. Through all the ages, tell them. Give them reason to believe and to trust in a God who provides and protects. (Deuteronomy 11:18-20)

The testimony of previous generations is a bridge over which we cross the raging floods of cultural deception and shifting doctrine. If we fail to provide those bridges for our children, our progeny will be washed away in the roiling currents and howling rapids.

Tell the stories! Use words that are accurate and attractive. Put them to music, rhyme the syllables, and give them rhythm. Paint them on a canvas, or carve them in stone.

Tell the stories!

The Lovely Lady—my favorite walking companion—and I wandered along an abandoned roadbed just a few days hence, as my current bout with my thorn in the flesh began. We had a goal in mind, a century-old bridge, now abandoned, but still standing. It has not carried traffic for a number of years.

A monument to the past, the framework stands. There is even a roadway across, but a few steps onto it and one soon realizes that it will never support the weight of a vehicle again.

A monument—nothing more.

Bridges are meant to be more than monuments. Properly maintained and kept, they smoothly move traffic from the place left behind to the destination. Abandoned, they serve no purpose, but rust and rot into the landscape, forcing the traveler to choose a different route or be carried away in the flood.

I will build bridges.

With my last breath, I will tell the stories.

As my companion and I wandered, almost sadly, away from the beautiful old span, I realized that my faulty lungs would make the half-mile trek back to the road difficult and wondered about the wisdom of making the trip.

I needn’t have worried. Companions are made to help each other on the road.

We don’t walk the road alone—don’t build the bridges alone—don’t cross them alone.

Surrounded by a great cloud of storytellers, we press on.

To our last breath.

Tell the Story.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit!
(Hebrews 12:1,2 ~ The Message)

For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.
(from A Horse and His Boy ~ C.S. Lewis ~ English author ~ 1898-1963)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

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