Front Porch Tales

by Philip Gulley

  Been times I’ve wondered how others can be so happy when I’m so miserable. Then other times I’ve wondered how I can smile when other folks are crying buckets. And how little those tears mean to me sometimes.

  Of all the traits we need to cultivate, empathy is the toughest. That’s when somebody’s crying but someone else is tasting tears. Most of us don’t taste anyone’s tears but our own. And we wonder why our souls dry up.

  So today I aspire toward empathy, for tasting tears other than my own. And I’m going to start with my neighbor, whom Jesus commanded me to love, whether she loans me her lawn tools or not.

  Liberty

  When our friend’s children were waist-high and starting peewee league, my wife and I would take the lawn chairs over and watch a little baseball on summer evenings when the shadows were long. Peewee League is serious stuff in our neck of the woods—matching shirts, big wads of bubble gum, and telling the umpire he’s blind. And that’s just the parents.

  Joan and I were watching on Friday night when Robin, a five-year-old girl, stepped up to bat. Three feet tall, fifty pounds, and sun-blond hair. Her father was the home plate umpire that night, it being his turn. He watched as his little girl knocked the dirt from the bottom of her shoes just like the big leaguers. His little girl. Five years ago, he’d carried her home from the hospital in a fuzzy blanket, crazy with love. Now she was pounding home plate and aiming for the outfield. Where had time gone?

  Now he was the umpire. Mr. Objective. Mr. I-have-no-children-so-don’t-expect-a-favor. I was watching him. Robin had never actually hit the ball; she was always a second or two late. But today was a new day, and who knows what might happen? Her father weakened a bit and whispered encouragement. I saw his lips move. “Come on, honey. You can do it. Keep your eye on the ball. Remember what I taught you.”

  The pitcher pitched and Robin swung. Wood met leather, a trickle of a hit down the third base line, and Dad went crazy. Forgot all about impartiality. He jumped up and yelled, “Run, honey, run.” And Robin ran. She ran like she had never run before, like she had rockets strapped to her shoes. She ran straight over the pitcher’s mound to second base. Skipped first base. Forgot all about it.

  Sheer bedlam. Robin on second base jumping up and down, high-fiving one and all, basking in joy. Parents on the sidelines were jumping up and down, too, but for reasons other than joy. The adults gathered at home plate for a high-level conference, thumbing through their dogeared rule books. Can’t skip first base. Got to be a rule against that somewhere. After a while, Dad walked over to his little slugger and called her out, while the adults contented themselves that justice had prevailed.

  In these days of moral cloudiness, we’re tempted to think rules will be our salvation. But a stubborn devotion to rules can kill joy in a snap. Like the time when Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath and the Pharisees cried foul.

  Saint Augustine once said, “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. Then do anything you want.” This is liberty exercised within love’s boundary. Love God and neighbor, then do anything you want. That gives love and joy all kinds of room to weave their spell.

  Irony is, love and rules have the same goal—helping folks get along. Though love does it through the pull of the heart while rules attempt it with the twist of the arm. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not an anarchist. Rules have their place on life’s roster. I just think love and joy ought to lead the way.

  Stuff

  My grandpa comes to my house twice a year. I measure his well-being by how long it takes him to walk up the sidewalk. I’ve lived here six years, and his walk time has doubled. That’s not a good sign.

  He walks in, sits down, looks around, and says, “I love this house,” though he never says why. Is it the furniture? the cream walls? the beige carpet? Who knows? Grandpa certainly isn’t saying. But I know how he feels. I love my house too. It’s the closets. Our house has lots of closets and two extra rooms we don’t use except when we have company, which means we have a lot of space to store our stuff.

  I love stuff and have a lot of it, even though I’m a Quaker who believes in living simply. We have two couches, one love seat, and fifteen chairs. Fifteen chairs may seem like a lot of chairs to you, but I sit in most of them once a day, except for the chair in the laundry room, which is covered with dryer lint. One of the chairs in my living room is more than 150 years old. Whenever we have guests, the heaviest person invariably gravitates toward it. I spend the whole visit on the edge of my chair ready to leap forward and catch the person the moment the chair collapses in a heap.

  In addition to the fifteen chairs inside, we have a porch swing, three lawn chairs, and two Adirondack chairs outside. That’s so whenever I’m watching my wife do yardwork, I’ll have a comfortable place to sit.

  We have three kitchen tables, four end tables, three coffee tables, two desks, and a typing table we don’t use anymore. Plus a typewriter, two word processors, and more than thirty pens and pencils in the drawer to the left of the kitchen sink. On the off chance I’m struck with a thought, I want a writing surface and instrument close at hand. I also have a gardening table in the garage and a workshop table in the basement. Mostly they’re covered with half-finished projects that I’m going to wrap up one of these days when I’m not so busy.

  I have two bicycles, though I can ride only one at a time. My wife and children have bikes too. Except for Sam, who’s only one. He rides with my wife. We all have helmets, which means we need shelves to store them on. I have six sets of shelves—two in the basement and four in the garage. They’re full of half-empty paint cans. I have eighteen of those.

  We have three sets of dishes, though we use only one. They’re made by Corelle. We’ve used them for twelve years and are sick and tired of them, but they’re too nice to throw away. My aunt gave them to us on our wedding day. If I’d known we were going to be stuck with them this long, I wouldn’t have sent her a thank-you note.

  We have eleven lamps, four flashlights, two camping lanterns, and a kerosene lamp. Of the four flashlights, only one works, but one of my boys hid it, so when I need a flashlight I use our piano lamp and a long extension cord. Plus we have two boxes of candles and a book of matches from a funeral home. I don’t think funeral homes ought to give matches away, since most people use them to light cigarettes. It’s hard to believe funeral directors care for us as much as they claim to, when they’re passing out matchbooks right and left.

  The last time I saw my grandpa, he was talking about all the stuff he wants to give me when he dies. I hope he lives a long time, since I’m in no mood to move. As fun as it is to have all my stuff, it’s also a real drag. I’m so busy tending my stuff, my soul gets dust-covered. An old gospel hymn calls this being “rich in things and poor in soul.”

  The solution to this problem isn’t to give all our stuff away. Then Grandpa dies, and we’re back where we started. What we need to do is figure out why we want stuff to begin with. Mostly it gets down to thinking it will make us happy. Which it does, but only for a while, then we need more stuff.

  As I see it, the only way out is death. Or discipleship, which comes from the word “discipline.” At least that’s what my dictionary says. And I should know, since I have five of them.

  Where I Stand

  Jay, a friend of mine, once observed that the only thing it takes to make an insane asylum is an empty room and the right people. He said this during a church meeting, which caused the rest of us to wonder what he was implying.

  I’ve always prided myself on my robust mental health. Thirty-four years old and no breakdown, at least not yet. My wife said I came close once. That was the autumn Saturday we went to Nashville—a small town three counties down where God went overboard with fall leaves. Being a place of beauty in a plain-Jane state, Nashville receives more visitors than Disneyland. Still, it’s good to go there at least once a year, if only to be reminded why we don’t live in Los Angeles.


  I suspect it was the car exhaust fumes that disrupted my thought processes and compelled me to take a shortcut to Nashville. We ended up temporarily misplaced in a little town called Pumpkin Center. It had a gas/grocery/video/ Elvis memorabilia store. I went inside to ask directions. This, despite my father’s clear teaching never to ask directions from anyone with three first names.

  So I asked Billy Bob Clyde how to get to Nashville. “Well, you go over to Cecil Hopper’s place and turn right, then you take a left at Skeeter Hodge’s farm, then go straight ahead ’til you reach Nashville.”

  Now I know why older folks stick compasses on their dashboards.

  We finally made it to Nashville. Simply climbed a tree and looked for the smog. Got there in time to buy some ice cream and a genuine rubber tomahawk for our then two-year-old, who has since scalped two cats and a Chihuahua.

  I saw my grandpa the next day and told him about our trip. He’s in the Fellowship of Compass Carriers. Always knows right where he is and right where he’s headed.

  I used to laugh at him and call him Columbus. “Hey, Columbus, how’s life on the Ninja, the Pinto, and the Ave Maria?” He’d give me a blank stare. My grandpa may not know his history, but he never gets lost.

  Truth be told, I sometimes envy folks like my grandpa, folks who have this sixth sense concerning the life-path they need to take. As for me, I spend a lot of time roaming the back roads, never certain what I think about things most folks are clear on.

  My grandpa eyeballs his compass, and down the road he goes. No situational ethics for him, by golly. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and let the chips fall where they may. I’m more of a on-the-one-hand-this-but-on-the-other-hand-that kind of guy.

  This can cause problems when you’re a minister. Folks expect me to know right where I stand, especially in church meetings. I don’t know what this presumes about ministers, but I’m not encouraged.

  I’ll tell you where I stand. I stand for integrity and for erring on the side of grace and for reading to your children. Oh, yeah, and for staying home on Saturdays in the fall.

  The Dog Who Wouldn’t Die

  The problem with dogs is their poor sense of timing. Take Blue, for instance, who belongs to some friends of mine. They claim Blue is an Australian Blue Heeler, though I have no way of verifying this, since I know no other Australian Blue Heelers. I’m taking my friends’ word on this, who have proven to be honest in all other matters. Blue is seven years old, which is young for an Australian Blue Heeler, some of whom live twenty-five years. That’s 175 years to you and me. They are the Methusalehs of dogs.

  Blue got sick last year. Her stomach began to swell, and my friends thought she was pregnant. This was a reasonable assumption. In addition to their poor sense of timing, dogs have incredibly loose morals and mate rather indiscriminately.

  They took Blue to the veterinarian. He told them Blue was very sick and would likely die. Then he treated Blue, charged them a monstrous sum of money, and sent Blue home to die. Of course, my friends were sad and began to pamper Blue. We do have a tendency to spoil loved ones who are sick. Think of the last time you saw a kid with polio get spanked. See what I mean?

  But as I said, most dogs have poor timing. This is certainly true of Blue. Six months after her death sentence, Blue lives on. She is the healthiest dying dog I’ve ever seen. Now, having been spoiled for so long, Blue has lost all sense of discipline. She chews on clothes and gives her owners a sullen look when they tell her to do something. In a word, Blue has overstayed her welcome. She is the mother-in-law who came for a week’s visit and stayed a year.

  I was talking with my friends about her. They told how they went through the grieving process six months ago when they thought Blue was going to die. Now they are over their grief and wish Blue had the decency to expire. Until she does, their lives are on hold. They can’t take a vacation because they’d have to put her in a kennel. If she died in some small cage surrounded by strangers, they’d feel terrible for the rest of their lives. They’re in a real fix. This is why dogs are so infuriating. A cat would have the good sense to succumb in a tasteful and timely manner. Dogs are dense and can’t take a hint.

  Now my friends are upset with Blue. I know how they feel. One of my brothers got sick when I was little. He came close to dying. Then he got better but not before causing us to miss our summer vacation. That made me so mad. If he was going to make us miss our summer vacation, the least he could have done was die. Some people are so insensitive!

  The problem here is one of expectation. Blue’s refusal to die on schedule reminds us that life and death aren’t always predictable. Things don’t always turn out as we’d been led to believe. Marriages begun with tender words and long conversations dwindle down to grudging grunts and strained silence. Careers that began at rocket speed sputter to a midlife halt. It’s almost enough to make you scared of hoping.

  But the reverse is also true. Tragedy can turn to victory with a few short words. Consider Abraham and Sarah. They’d braced themselves for a life without children—no sticky kisses, no one-tooth baby grins, no lap-sitting grandkids—when God paid them a visit bearing a box of it’s-a-boy cigars.

  Life in God’s reign is kaleidoscopic in nature. We try in vain to picture life’s next scene, while grace is at work resetting the stage. Some dogs just won’t die, and some barren lives just won’t stay that way.

  Soul Tending

  I read not long ago how gardening has risen in popularity among young American males. The article quoted a sociologist who attributed this to the male’s need to nurture. I thought we were doing it to get out of cleaning the house.

  I got serious about gardening the summer my first son was born. Somehow the bulb companies found out and began sending me their catalogs. I ordered a few things and once actually got what I ordered: sixty starts of myrtle, which the catalog described as a “robust, breathtaking carpet of emerald beauty.” Today I have a beautiful stand of myrtle underneath my maple tree. I found it in the woods when I was throwing away the dead myrtle I’d gotten from the bulb company.

  My neighbors like to garden too. They not only have beautiful flower beds, their yards are exquisite. My dandelions blow into their yard, so they’ve been encouraging me to kill them, but I don’t want to. I like to think of my yard as a melting pot. Everything is welcome—all the huddled weeds yearning to breathe free. I consider it a place of sanctuary, a symbol of Christ’s welcoming inclusivity. Besides, every fall my neighbors’ leaves blow into my yard, and this is my only way to pay them back.

  I have two flower beds in my yard. One is in the middle of the backyard. A big sinkhole opened up right before we moved in, and the previous owner brought in a load of sand to fill it up. Which meant I had a giant litter box for all the neighborhood cats. So one day I built a stone border, brought in a load of topsoil, and planted a tree and flowers. Now it’s so pretty the cats bring their friends.

  My other flower bed is one of those garden-in-a-can things. When I bought it, I had visions of crisp lace curtains blowing in a July breeze and old clay jars filled to overflowing with wildflowers, like you see in the magazines at the checkout counter. The can promised three hundred square feet of “lush, radiant beauty.” It said that in big print. What it said in small print was that you have to turn the earth over to a depth of six inches. I borrowed my neighbor’s rototiller, since I wasn’t about to let my wife do all that work by hand.

  The garden didn’t do too well the first summer. Then I read an article about how forest fires cause wildflowers to grow real thick, so I set the garden on fire, and a pine tree, and my gardening shed. Now I know what people mean when they say gardening can be expensive.

  The second summer the flowers were thick. When they reached their peak, I cut them and brought them inside. Dug the clay jars out of the basement. Opened up the windows so the lace curtains would blow. Woke up the next morning, and those flowers had gone to the great flower bed in the sky—wilted and bent and sticky with dea
th.

  Elton Trueblood talked about how we’re a cut-flower world. We sever things from their life source and expect them to flourish. And we cut ourselves off from God and are dismayed when our lives wilt and fade. We spend so much time chasing after the baubles of the world, we’re bankrupt when it comes to the treasures of the holy. We want joy and beauty, but we want them without having to stay connected to the One who gives them. So we look for them in the world but come up empty-handed and empty-hearted.

  If it’s lasting beauty we seek, we’re simply going to have to spend as much time tending our souls as we do tending our yards.

  Seeking and Finding

  My father is a leader of men. He exudes horse sense. When guidance is needed, my father’s telephone rings. So when the Danville Mushroom Hunters Association was looking for leadership, they turned to my father.

  “You must be our president, Norm,” they said. “Everyone respects you. People turn to you for advice. Besides, you have a key to Lee Comer’s cabin, and we were hoping we could go there this weekend.”

  The nomination was made. The vote taken. Five to zero, a veritable landslide.

  They left for the cabin on a Friday night, stopping on the way to purchase a gallon of wine in obedience to Saint Paul’s advice to young Timothy. Ordinarily, these are not religious men, except for when it comes to 1 Timothy 5:23; then they are fundamentalists to the core.

  Dad woke them up at 4:30 the next morning. Any mushroom hunter worth his salt knows that alone of all the mushroom family, the morel is at its finest in the early morning hours. Once the sun rises, the morel loses its appeal. It’s a nocturnal mushroom. When the sun hits a morel, it’s done for, but if you pick it while it’s still wet with morning dew and get it into briny water within an hour or so, you’ll enjoy an unrivaled delicacy. You have to plan accordingly.