The Dangling Muffler Escapade

Just before lunch today, I heard a terrible racket coming down the street.  The noise stopped in our driveway causing me to dash to the window.  My husband had pulled into the drive with the muffler dragging below his car.  The racket was the muffler scraping the pavement all the way up the street.  He hurried in, grabbed the keys to my car and hurried out so as not to miss his noon Rotary meeting.

For some inexplicable reason, as I pondered the vehicle in the driveway, I saw it as an irresistible challenge.  I have no idea what makes me do things like this, especially since my husband didn’t expect me to take care of it.  But, I crouched down next to the car and tried to pull the muffler off…no luck.  I then decided that perhaps I could wire it up off the pavement, so that the only noise on the way to the muffler shop would be the unmuffled engine noise.  I figured at least the rattle and scrape sound could be eliminated.  A coat hanger, bungee cord and 30 minutes later, I had the muffler ever so slightly above the ground.  

I went in the house, washed off the dirt acquired from my under-the-car activity, made myself a PBJ sandwich, and headed for the muffler shop.  There was a bit of metal-on-the-pavement sound along with the rumble of free exhaust, but not nearly as loud as earlier.  I thought my solution had worked, until I hit a bump.  A thud and a look in the rear view mirror revealed the muffler was now detached and in the middle of the street behind me. The bungee cord and coat hanger were still hooked to the under-carriage of the car.   I pulled over and used a blanket from the car to protect my hands while picking up the now hot muffler.

The rest of the trip to the garage was uneventful, except for strange looks from other motorists and pedestrians.  The manager at the muffler shop said I shouldn’t have bothered to pick up the muffler.  He said that people troll the city picking up scrap metal, and it would have probably been picked up before I even got to the shop.  I told him that I was just trying to tidy up after myself.

I sat in the waiting area, ate my PBJ and looked at old magazines.   When my husband got home, he called my cell phone wondering where his car was.

The muffler is now fixed…it was actually under a life-time warranty.  Of course, the labor, the bracket and the pipes on either side of the muffler weren’t on warranty.  Funny how that works.  A life-time guarantee plus $200 will get your muffler fixed.

I’m still trying to figure out why I saw that dangling muffler as a challenge.  If I could answer that question, it might explain some other curious things about my life too.

Waiting for Life...Waiting for Death

It is a sad thing to watch a young person “waiting for life” to happen to her.  I have seen this phenomenon more than once.   A young person sits on the sofa in front of the television, mindlessly and indiscriminately watching whatever comes on, because she can’t think of anything better to do.  She wanders around the house, or pokes around in the refrigerator, or stares into space, or checks email or snail-mail repeatedly, as though something significant surely must drop in front of her any minute.

At the other end of the continuum is the elderly person whose strength, sight, hearing or mental acuity have failed him.  He sits in his favorite chair staring blankly, nodding off now and then, sighing, and occasionally shifting position ever so slightly.  Perhaps, someone will visit him, and he will rouse from his lethargy for conversation.  Life is passing him by and he is “waiting for death.”  The elderly person may or may not be able to change his circumstance.

The young person is the sadder of the two, because she can change her circumstance and chooses instead to wallow in a bog of mental and physical inactivity.

For goodness sake, get out and DO SOMETHING!!!!

Go for a walk, read a book, start a craft project, clean something, volunteer somewhere….maybe at a nursing home or senior residence that has elderly people “waiting for death.”  There is just no excuse for “waiting for life!”

Inescapable

“Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the Lord.  “Do not I fill heaven and earth?”  Jeremiah 23:24

What a different world we would live in, if all men understood and believed this.  Our deeds are not covered by darkness or hidden by closed doors.  There is no way to whisper quietly enough that our words are not heard….in fact, our thoughts are heard.  No mountain is high enough, no water is deep enough, no tunnel penetrates far enough, and no desert is remote enough to escape the all-seeing eye and all-hearing ear.

Because…

God Himself fills heaven and earth.

For the one who loves God and desires to do His bidding, this is a blessed comfort.  For the one who ignores God and has no desire to be directed by Him, it ought to produce terror.  The only reason it doesn’t is that men can convince themselves that He does not exist or is powerless.  But, just because men can delude themselves, does not change truth.  If God exists, He does so whether or not men believe in Him.

The person who does not know or love God sees evidence of His presence every day, but does not recognize it.  The person who loves God sees Him and the work of His hands everywhere and gives thanks.

Father's Day Reflections

My Dad and I got off to a shaky start in more than one way.  I was born in 1945 when he was still in France.  World War II ended in time for him to come home for Thanksgiving when I was 7 months old.  This delay in bonding wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that there was a second and larger problem.  My Dad had no idea how he negatively impacted my concept of myself as I began to develop.

Dad did not know Jesus as his personal Savior until I was 7 years old.  Even after he made a commitment to follow Christ and gave up some of his unsavory habits, he did not understand the hurtfulness of things he said to me.  Although there was a level on which I was sure he loved me, I was wounded by frequent comments that I was fat or stupid or a “sukie.”  That was his word for someone who lacked courage.

Right up through my teenage years, I could not reconcile my excellent grades and the admiration of my intelligence by some family members with my Dad’s comments that I was stupid.  I was always surprised with the high scores I received on standardized tests.  How could I be stupid and score in the top 1 or 2 percent?  I know it sounds ridiculous, but one tends to believe what a parent says.  I remember hearing Dad say that there was no point in educating women.  I knew I wanted an education and had no idea how this would happen.

Having him call me “fatty” was part of what made me feel awkward and uncomfortable about my body.  There was a time in my childhood when illness caused me to become too thin and other times when I was too heavy.  I always felt uncomfortable in my skin.

Dad was very proud of my singing voice.  He would tell me that I sang like a bird.  But, he caused me to be terrified the very first time I sang a solo.  I was only about 8 years old.  The title of the song was “I’ll be a Sun Beam.”  He teased me unmercifully that I was going to get up and sing, “I’ll be a bum seam.”  He thought this was funny.

It was a wonder I learned to drive.  He had no patience and was given to yelling even when I was behind the wheel.  I remember one occasion when we were in city traffic, and he got so nasty, that right out in the driving lane, I put the car into “park,” got out and moved to the back seat.  The only reason I persevered in getting my license was that my mother had never learned to drive, and I refused to be as dependent as she was.

I have no idea how I had the courage to attend a college out-of-state and hundreds of miles from home, but it was a God-inspired decision.  I learned that I could not be timid, that a certain amount of self-confidence was right and good and necessary for survival.  It was not sinful to figure out what gifts God had given me and to determine to use them with His help and for His glory.  I lost weight, got contact lenses, figured out how to wear make-up, became a nurse, put myself through college AND forgave my father, and all of this was by the grace of God.

After my Mother’s death, Dad lived with us for about 8 years.  We did not always get along or see eye to eye, but we did live together in peace the vast majority of the time.  I tried once during those years to talk to him about the hurt…to get it out in the open.  I thought I would start by telling him that it was hurtful to me that he had helped my brothers with their college education.  He had helped me with nursing school, the entirety of which was equivalent to about one semester of college, and after that I was on my own.  I had to work hard to pay for my college expenses, and I had not been able to participate in extra activities on campus.  His only comment was, “Well, you didn’t come out with any debt, did you?”  Actually I had come out with some debt, although minor.  But, his rather defiant tone and facial expression made it clear that he was not able to understand.  I gave up on trying to express my feelings.  I just forgave him again.

I loved my Dad.

I am not perfect either….some of his rough edges may even live on in me.

One of the things we must do as Christians is to lovingly forgive each other for being frail and imperfect. 

God, our heavenly Father, does.

Let There Be Light

Millennia ago man did not know that E=mc².  He did not know that matter and energy were interchangeable.   Nor did he know that photosynthesis was capturing the energy of the sun and embedding it into green plants to be released later as the vegetation was eaten or turned into fossils fuels.  Our total dependency on the sun as an energy source or even our need for an energy source was unknown to man. 

And yet….Genesis relates that God said, “Let there be light.”

The “wisemen” of this age would have us believe that there is no God, and that the creation story is a myth.  I want to know, if that is the case, how of all things did a mere mortal (and a primitive one, at that) decide that the beginning of it all was the statement, “Let there be light.”  Why did he not say, “And one of the gods took a lump of clay and rolled it into a ball, and it became earth.”

NO!  The creation story begins correctly and accurately, because God Himself revealed the truth.  The energy source had to come first.

An infinite God, who is Himself “light,” could give of Himself without diminishing Himself.  He is the ultimate and only necessary source of light.  When this world passes away, and the sun and moon disappear, He tells us in Revelation that there will be no need for them, because He will be the Light.

When God stepped into human history in the form of Christ, He said, “I am the Light of the world.”  Many places in the Bible repeat this theme.  We are told that some men choose to walk in darkness, because they mistakenly think it will hide their evil deeds.  We are told that some are blind in a spiritual sense, just as some are physically blind.  Light and the ability to see which is dependent on it are persistent themes.

It all began with Light!  It will end with Light.  We are sustained by, live and move and have our being in that Light.  Any man may choose not to believe this.  He can refuse Light in a spiritual sense, but He cannot refuse it in a physical sense.  Even the atheist is dependent on the Light….he just doesn’t know that God is the source.

A Miss is as good as a Mile...well, almost

My granddaughter called last evening and asked if she could come to church with us today, and then if I would take her grocery shopping afterward.  She doesn't have a car, and the grocery store with the best prices is on the other side of town from her apartment.

We finished the shopping, loaded in the groceries, and started home along the busy 4-lane, plus center turning lane, street which passes by most of the grocery stores, plazas and fast food joints in town.  I'm not sure why the city allowed that street to over-develop in such a fashion, but that's another story.

The Burger King is on the corner of a dead-end side street which does indeed have a stop sign.  As we approached it, a car with a young male driver came tearing out of the side street, did not stop at the stop sign, and did a U-turn through my lane and into the BK parking lot.  I slammed on the brakes and pulled a bit to the left, but couldn't go very far in that direction, because there was a lane of traffic on my left.  I came to an abrupt halt just missing the offending vehicle whose driver was looking to his right and seemed to be totally oblivious to what he had just done.

Everything in our car shifted.  The thought flashing through my mind was that I have only owned this nice new car for a month.  My granddaughter, who is a potty-mouth, said, #%*@!!!
Then she said, "You idiot!  You made me swear in front of my grandma!"
So much for personal responsibility for one's conduct.

The miss would have been as good as a mile, except that today was a Coffee Hour at church, and the remains of a rhubarb cake with crumb topping were on the back seat.  The abrupt stop sent the dish sailing onto the floor.  There are now cake crumbs all over the floor of the back seat area.  Looks like I will be getting out the vacuum cleaner.

Macbeth Revisited

Fifty-one years ago, when I graduated from high school, I used a passage from Macbeth as the jumping off point for my graduation speech.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.  It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

I used this passage, because it demonstrated such a contrast to what I believed about life then, and it still does today after 50+ more years of life.  I have pondered it again recently, because two students I am tutoring are reading Macbeth.

How did Macbeth arrive at this point of bitterness and despair?  My answer is that he accepted no moral absolutes and believed that he could manipulate events to achieve his destiny.  He was unwilling to leave his future in the hands of either God or fate.  I know some people like that!  They may not be murderers, as Macbeth was, but they certainly do try to manipulate outcomes and do not concern themselves with what is “right” or “wrong” in the process. 

The solution is to:

1.        Agree with God about what constitutes right and wrong.

2.       Acknowledge that it is impossible to be “good” on one’s own.

3.       Believe in the redemption offered through the death of Christ.

4.       Put the future in God’s hands.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge him,

And he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3: 5-6 (NIV)

This does not guarantee smooth sailing in life.  If my future had been revealed to me on that graduation day, I would have been sure there was some mistake.  “Hey, that can’t be my life….you’ve got me mixed up with someone else!” 

But, what this approach to life does is to give one a means of dealing with both the agony and the ecstasy.  It removes a great burden of anxiety over the future.  It is still OK to have long term and short term goals, and to make plans, but it is done without attempts at manipulation of people and events.  It avoids the temptation to rage when circumstances don’t fall into place in the desired fashion.

Life is not meant to be “a tale told by an idiot.”

I am come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Jesus Christ in John 10:10