Too Simple

 Has anyone ever asked you to do something, and you thought, “that’s too simple and it will not work.”  While reading my devotion I came across the word “exponentially.”  What was odd, I heard “growing exponential” in a sermon the day before.  Sometimes when I do not know what a word means, I generally see how it is used in the sentence.  This time, since it crossed my path twice, I looked it up.  The definition did not help so I looked to see a common sense use of “exponentially.”

What I found was an old math equation using a penny.  It goes like this:  Would you work for a day for a penny if I doubled it every day for 30 days?  Most people say no.  In fact, I asked my secretary Pam, and she said no.  I would!

If I work for a penny a day, $0.01, and double it each day on the thirtieth day, I would be paid $10,737,418.24 for that day.  Did I ever tell you that algebra was the easiest subject I ever took?  This exponential function can be represented by the equation: f(x) = 0.01(2^x) where x = the day number. If you plug in 30 for x, you get f(x) = 0.01×2³⁰ = 10,737,418.24.  The problem, no pun intended, is the simplicity of a penny a day.

Take my friend Keilan.  After winter shut down at the cement plant, Keilan and I were in the process of starting up the cement kilns.  The coal hoppers had a slide at the bottom above the coal mills.  Normally it took someone hammering the slide out of the hopper.  It was hard to open when the hoppers were empty and very difficult when tons of coal was on top of the slide.  Knowing how problematical it was, I had greased the slide before pushing it in place when the hopper emptied for shutdown.  The shift supervisor instructed Keilan to make sure the slide was out while the tanks were empty.

Keilan could not find a sledgehammer.  Usually, they were everywhere.  I inquired why he needed a sledgehammer.  Keilan could be easily frustrated; worried coal would be put into the hoppers before he could get the slide out.  He had a few special words for me and again asked if I knew where there was a sledgehammer.  I asked him if he had tried to pull the slide out of the hopper.  I got a few choice words explaining that it was impossible to do that.

Keilan did not know was while he was in search of the hiding sledgehammers I went to see if I could pull out the slide knowing I had greased it while the hopper was empty.  It pulled right out.  I pushed it back in for a little fun with Keilan.

The bamboozled Keilan returned with no sledgehammer.  I asked again if he had tried to pull out the slide.  After a few more inapt words from him and some persuading words from me, Keilan consented to try to pull the slide. 

If I had not caught him, he yanked the slide with the fury of an agitated Hercules; he would have gone over a safety rail and fallen twenty feet onto concrete.  It was funny and Keilan and the slide, which weighed about seventy-five lbs., were heavy.  I think Keilan would have tried to kill me, but he was too indebted since I caught him.  Again, the solution was too simple.

On another occasion, my friend Bailey, a carpenter at the University of Montevallo, had spent several days and several dollars taking his infant daughter Ashleigh to the pediatrician to cure oral thrush, a yeast infection in the mouth caused by an overgrowth of fungus.  I worked four years with Bailey.  A co-worker and I said the old timers called it “thrash” and that he should take Ashleigh to a “thrash doctor.”  That’s where I took my children.  My Grandmoe Chapman was a thrash doctor.

Bailey was a college graduate and was reluctant to believe what he termed voodoo and old wives' tales.  Ashleigh grew worse, Bailey spent more money, and we encouraged him to use a thrash doctor.

One day an officer from the University police department visited the carpenter shop for a cup of coffee.  The morning conversation was the status of Ashleigh’s mouth and Bailey’s checking account.  Hearing our advice to see the thrash doctor, which do not charge for services rendered, Officer Satterwhite advised Bailey to take her to the thrash doctor.  Not believing my co-worker and me, Bailey took Ashleigh to Officer Satterwhite’s mother, a thrash doctor.  One trip healed Ashleigh.  The solution was too simple.

So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.  And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.  But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.  And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?  Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (II Kings 5:9-14 KJV).


 

 

Bumps Ahead

One day I was spending some time alone by riding in West Alabama and East Mississippi.  I did not have any particular place to go or to be.  I wanted to meditate as I drove.  Each time I came to an intersection I would think a minute then turn.

I was traveling in places I had never been before.

Most of the traveling was smooth for my little Honda Civic.  I like driving my old truck, but it takes too much expensive gas to joy ride in it, but it is more comfortable.  I drove without the radio or CD playing.  I just wanted to watch, observe, and listen to God.

Not knowing where I was or where I was going was uncannily soothing.  I was not lost because I knew that if I went north, I would intersect at I 59.  If I continued west, I would be in Meridian.  If I traveled south, I would intersect US Hwy 84.  If I went back east, there would be Alabama Highway 17.

Somewhere in East Mississippi, I was reminded of home.  The roads were deplorable just like Chilton County Roads.  They were worse than anything we had up home including red dirt roads and converted pig trails, but it was east Mississippi.  There were no signs to let you know where you were.  I thought I might have changed commissioner districts.  Used to be up home, commissioners responsible for our “red” neck of the woods could care less if we had good roads.  The commissioners claimed lack of money.  When they did get money, they would spray tar and cover it with crushed limestone that was excellent sand blasting material for pulverizing windshields, stripping chrome bumpers, and removing paint.

The poor commissioners did not repair potholes or ditches in the road when putting in drainpipes.   I hit a pothole in the town of Thorsby one time that caused my tire to go flat.  I thought I ruined the tire only to find I ruined a tire and the rim.  This highway was worse than Chilton County.

The landscape was very familiar until I saw something redneck that we do not have up home.  There was a fencerow that baseball caps adorned the top of the fence posts.  I noticed that the caps were Alabama and Auburn caps.  That is not unusual for East Mississippi, but it got me to thinking about the change in the road a couple miles back.  I paid attention to the car tags of the next house and discovered I was in Choctaw County Alabama.  I asked the Lord to forgive me for thinking bad thoughts about the poor poverty, last in everything, State of Mississippi.  I thought about it a moment and realized that the County tag for Chilton is 14 and the one for Choctaw is 15 and suddenly everything in the world made sense even the identical highway connecting Magnolia to Lamison.  I was getting scared to make a church visit to Lamison in my small Honda.  I am afraid if I don’t disappear in a hole, the potholes are going to destroy my front end.  But I get the same sensation when travel State Highway 183 from Union Town to Marion only poor Perry County has paved that highway three or four times in the past twenty years.

I continued on the road, it carried me to South Choctaw Academy in Toxey, then Gilbertown where I crossed the railroad tracks and started back on my journey into uncharted territory in search of peace, meditation, and dinner.

I saw a sign with Welcome to Mississippi. Other signs warned of road closure, lane closure, flagman ahead, slower traffic keep right, and detours, low shoulder, and bump ahead.  I can testify that there was a bump, but it was a long way from the sigh. On my journey to “find myself”, I found that there were very few places that were different from where I have been.  I found myself at a catfish restaurant in Stateline, Mississippi. I found the people nice, the patrons friendly, and the catfish delicious.  In Stateline, I thought about the gecko in the GIECO commercial where he is jumping from Tennessee to Virginia.  When I turned left, the highway changed tunes, and I saw the Sweet Home Alabama sign.

I drove slowly and thought about the things I saw.  I crossed over rivers and creeks that continue their journey endlessly flowing since the Lord created them.  I saw empty towns, houses, and land that were once productive now sitting idle and forgotten.  I saw large homes, small homes, new homes, rundown homes, mobile homes, and nursing homes. 

I saw a wreck or two and people helping.  I saw people in a hurry and some like me that were poking along.  There were the courteous drivers and the road rage maniacs.  There were safe drivers and the idiots that pass on hills and on double yellow lines.  There were new things and plenty of the same. 

In my time alone, God was showing that life is a journey, and the road will have its challenges.  As we journey in life, we can expect the unexpected.   Every year I pray each new journey will be better than the last.

I pray that we travel the road God gives us with confidence, and it will be a great journey regardless of the bumps.  I remind myself to thank God for roads, which remind of life.

Hey Chilton County Commissioners! How about painting the lines on the highways where we can journey and see the road, especially when it is raining.  As my kids say, drive between the mustard and the mayonnaise 

 

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it (Isaiah 40:3-5 KJV).

Sidetracked

Do you have trouble keeping up with stuff?  I do.  Every time I work on something, I cannot keep up with the tools.  I remember one time when I worked in a machine shop looking for a pair of pliers.  I accused everyone one in the shop of hiding my pliers.  The only reason I did was that my co-workers were notorious for doing such things.  I looked almost the entire day, finding the pliers when I got into my truck to go home.  They were in my back pocket.  I felt a little foolish and had to apologize to my co-workers the next day.

Since that time, I try to put my tools back when I finish with them.  I clean them if they are dirty and repair them when needed.  It is frustrating when trying to find a tool that I know that I out it in a designated place and it is not there.  Usually when I find it, it is where I put it.  I just forgot I placed it there.

If you are like me, most of the time I must spend a day cleaning up my shed.  Things have a way of collecting just inside the door.  It seems they find their resting place there because those that deposited them there claim they do not know where they go or where I want them to go. 

Now I admit there are situations when time runs out and one has to place things in an area out of the way until there is time to place those things in their places.  When quizzed about what I did today, my answer is I cut the grass.  It does not take all day to cut the grass, but if you have to take most of an hour to pick up a variety of tools and other paraphernalia to locate the lawn mower, it slows the process.

Discovering the lawn front tire has a slow leak, I try to decide do I take the hand pump and fill the tire, or do I take a few extra minutes and run an extension cord to the air compressor.  Deciding to use the hand pump, I take a few minutes trying to locate it.  I find it, but the hose has dry-rotted, forcing me to cut it, making it shorter.  I spend enough time that it would have been quicker to run the extension cord and used the compressor. 

Once the lawn mower is outside and inspected, it is discovered that the blades need sharpening and it needs oil.  If the 5/8 wrench needed to remove the blades is not where it is supposed to be and it takes fifteen minutes to locate it, it slows the process.  I hope that the hand grinder and C-clamp are where it is supposed to be and after about fifteen to twenty minutes the sharp blades can help redeem the time lost trying to find tools.

I find the oil, but the funnel I need to put in the oil is not where it is supposed to be and there goes some of the time wasted that I gained from having sharp blades.  Not being able to find the funnel, I have to take time to find a used bottle or card stock material that can double for a funnel.  While looking for those I discover that the funnel is in a bucket that is filled with tools and stuff from another project.

Once the oil is okay, I discover that the mower needs gas.  Picking up the gas can, I realize it is empty.  A trip to the gas station eats up valuable time.  Once back, I need another funnel for the gas.  Gasoline is too expensive to waste!  I am in luck.  The gas funnel is where it is supposed to be.  I fill the mower with gas.  Now, I am ready to cut the grass, but discover that the battery cable is corroded and I must take time clean the cable.  Finally, I cut the grass.

This scenario is not confined to my shed.  I have trouble at the office.  I routinely must take time to clear my desk.  I get a box from Pam the secretary, put everything in the box, and piece by piece I file most of it in file 13.  I try to keep all my books, files, and documents in order where I can put my hands on them quickly if needed.

I have spent many moments trying to locate a book that I know it is where it is supposed to be.  Right now, I have no idea where my Bible, The Message by John Peterson, is.  It is not with the other Bibles.  I think I loaned it to someone, so I may have to buy another.  Guess what?  If I buy another, The Message will reappear.

My personality says that I want things to be in order.  I am not obsessed with it, but it sure makes cutting grass quicker and my office look neater.  I believe that having things in order is what God designed.  Hear what Isaiah 14:12-13 in The Message says,

 

Listen, Jacob. Listen, Israel—
    I’m the One who named you!
I’m the One.
    I got things started and, yes, I’ll wrap them up.
Earth is my work, handmade.
    And the skies—I made them, too, horizon to horizon.
When I speak, they’re on their feet, at attention.

 

I sure am glad that God does a better job of putting things in order than I do.  I cannot image God saying, “Where did I put that rib I borrowed from Adam?”