Vanity Plates

Teresa and I enjoyed a vacation at historic Williamsburg, Virginia, recently. I am not the most astute observer in the world, but it became apparent very quickly in our daily drives that vanity plates seem to be "in" in that commonwealth. I saw more vanity license plates on cars in one week there than in a year in middle Tennessee.

I wasn't surprised, therefore, when the newspaper mentioned last week that Virginia has more vanity plates than any other state in the union. Of the 9.3 million vanity plate owners in the United States, 1 out of 10 is a Virginian. According to the Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, 16% of the drivers in Virginia have vanity plates. At the other end of the spectrum is Texas, where less than 1% of registered vehicles are "vanitized." I guess when your state is that big, you don't have to brag.

Before you and I start to think of Virginians as our country's egomaniacs, I should point out that such plates only cost $10 extra there. My vote for the Carly Simon "you're so vain" award would go to those 1.3 million folks (most actual number for a state) from Illinois who purchased vanity plates at $78 per pop. Now, that is paying a price to make a statement!

Although I am too tight (I would like to think unvain, but...) to purchase vanity plates, I confess that I enjoy them nonetheless. Like the urology specialist back in my home territory of Appalachia whose car was tagged I HLP U P. Without saying too much, "Doc, I get it--and I've got it." Speaking of Kentucky, we have worn out the
I AM 4 UK plate, but how about I H8 UT after last Saturday's 4-overtime lost in football to the Volunteers?

No doubt, my favorite vanity plate is the one that our daughter Megan pointed out to me on our trip home from Louisville over Thanksgiving. I had seen it on another car in another state once before, but it still touches my heart as a believer. It reads simply 4GVN. How amazing the grace of our loving Lord!

It Is Autumn and I Can See

Donald M. McKinney tells the story of being in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1947 and walking down Prince's Street on a beautiful spring day. The birds were singing, the trees were budding, the flowers in the garden-like setting were brilliant with their multi-colored hues.

Walking toward him in the distance was a man with a white cane, prodding his way down the street. He held a tin cup in one hand and McKinney noted something unusual. Everyone who passed him made a point to stop and drop money into his container--everyone! Some even went out of their way to intercept the man and add to his receipts.

As McKinney drew closer, he noted the reason the man was receiving such a positive response. He was wearing a placard that rested on his chest and read, "It is spring and I am blind."

The sightless man's message caused all of his audience to reflect upon their own blessings and to respond with compassionate charity.

How often we take for granted the blessings in life that God has given us! How seldom we stop to give Him thanks for eyes that see, ears that hears, and a world that He has so gloriously made for our pleasure.

No, it is not spring. It is Thanksgiving week, in fact, and God's autumn display in the trees of the middle Tennessee hills has reached its zenith. The brilliant reds and golds and oranges are balanced by the muted tones of browns and tans. It is a picture no artist could paint and one that dances on the eye of the mind of the thoughtful and thankful viewer.

No, it is not spring, but it is autumn, and I can see. Thank you, my Father, for a beautiful world and eyes with which to behold it!

Life Lessons From An "Old Man"

I turned 59 yesterday and was reminded once again that time marches on. Could I use this occasion to share an article I wrote shortly before a significant birthday back in 1998? Thanks!

"I appreciated the surprise 50th birthday party last night. It was so nice of you to remind me that this coming Friday I will have spent one-half of a century in this world. The many cards and gifts--both gag and good--touched my heart. Thanks. For what it is worth, I would like to share some of the lessons I have learned along the way. After all, at fifty I am old enough to be a member of the AARP and would be considered a sage in some circles!

I have learned that people are wonderful if you think they are. Wherever I have been, folks have risen to reach my expectations of them. A long time ago I began believing in people and I have never been sorry that I did. Not everyone rises to the challenge, but the vast majority do.

I have learned that if you put peanut butter and jelly on a piece of bread and accidentally drop it on the floor, it always lands jelly-side down. Always.

I have learned that if I have something bad or negative to say to someone, it is better for me to keep it to myself and not say it or write it. Once spoken or written, a word has a life of its own. You can't recall it or negate it regardless of how hard you try.

I have learned that kids are the most honest people in the world. If a five year-old tells you that you are ugly, you probably are.

I have learned to practice grace with others. Since I am well aware of the grace that God has extended to me, I don't demand perfection from my peers. If someone stumbles and falls in my presence, I try to offer them my hand and not my boot. Eventually I know that I will need them to do the same for me.

I have learned that the speed of the cars in front of you on a busy highway is directly proportional to the amount of time you have to get to your destination. If you are in a hurry, they crawl. If you are on vacation and driving leisurely, they are all behind you playing Mario Andretti and laying on the horn.

I have learned that God can be trusted. His timetable is not mine and His ways I don 't always understand, but in the final analysis, He has never failed me. I can utterly and totally depend on Him.

I have learned that self-adhesives will stick to absolutely anything--except their intended surface.

I have learned that in life you generally get what you pay for. Invest in quality with your time and money and it will come back to you. Buy cheap or cheat on your investment of time and energy and the end result will reflect your attitude.

I have learned never to trust a golfer who pauses at the green and tries to recount his strokes for the hole.

I have learned that the first prayer I was introduced to as a child was also probably the most accurate. It began, 'God is great; God is good ...' And He is!"

-----Phil LeMaster

Life Lesson from a Cheese Cube

It was one of those learning experiences you would just as soon read about in the life of someone else. I was a sixth grader at Garrison Consolidated School. Delores Bays was my teacher for the second year in a row—she taught the fifth and sixth grades together. She was a strictly business type of teacher who allowed absolutely no misbehavior from her students.

It was chili day in the lunchroom cafeteria. That also meant that you received a peanut butter sandwich, carrot and celery sticks, and cubes of American cheese. The cubes were a real temptation to some of us boys, especially when we were not too hungry. They were excellent projectiles to toss at an unwary enemy.

I am not sure exactly how it happened, but I made the totally unwise decision to throw a cube of cheese at someone. The memory seems to unfold in slow motion when I think about it now. In mid-toss, Mrs. Eakins, our principal, opened the “spy door” from her office and caught me in the act. Now, if Mrs. Bays was a Nazi storm trooper, Mrs. Eakins was the Fuhrer. She absolutely terrified me. Her yell of “stop that immediately” reverberated off the walls of the cafeteria. I stopped immediately. Sitting like a choir boy the rest of the lunch time, I ate the remainder of my cheese cubes, hopefully destroying any damaging evidence in the process.

I walked back to our classroom like a condemned criminal heading to his execution. I was sure Mrs. Bays was going to kill me. I had embarrassed her in front of the principal, the worst possible offense. In my mind, I was already dividing my worldly goods among my survivors.

Back in our classroom, I waited for the explosion. It never came. Mrs. Bays, a very wise woman who--I now know—really cared about me, simply said, “Phil, I want you to go to Mrs. Eakins’ office and apologize for your behavior.”

Well, as you can imagine, the gas chamber would have been easier. The trip to the principal’s office I have somehow blocked from conscious memory. Repression would be Freud's diagnosis.

Needless to say, it marked the end of my cheese-throwing career. It also taught me a very important lesson about accepting responsibility for your behavior. Sometimes when you do something wrong, you are able to make amends via restitution. Sometimes all you can do is to say that you are sorry and change your behavior for the future.

In retrospect, it was one of the most important lessons I ever learned in grade school. Thanks, Mrs. Bays.

-----Phil LeMaster

Permanent

Women of the world owe a great debt to Charles Nestle and it has absolutely nothing to do with chocolate! Nestle was the German-born hairstylist who was determined to perfect a wave that could properly be called permanent.

In his first experiment, he baked off all but one lock of a woman’s head. But Nestle was jubilant--the one lock curled, permanently! His perfected process used a chemical solution and took six hours. It would change the entire hairdressing industry.

But permanents are not permanent. A hairdresser friend explained to me sometime ago that they will last from a few days to perhaps three months, according to the texture of the hair and how “tight” the hair is wound. How can anything that lasts just three months be called “permanent?” Seems to me there are other things in life that beg the same question.

How many permanent addresses have you had in your lifetime? According to my calculations, Teresa and I have had at least seven in our thirty-seven plus years of marriage. The forms we fill out for tax, census, and other purposes always call for a permanent address, but the reality is that no such place exists in this world!

Then, there are those folks with permanent disabilities. You know what I am talking about, don’t you? Following a “terrible” injury and seemingly endless litigation with the government, a monthly stipend is awarded for a bad back. Amazingly, a few months later the individual is seen lifting eighty-pound sacks of flour into the bed of a truck! A miracle? Hardly. In our society, for many at least, permanent injuries are simply not permanent.

I could go on, but I think you get my point. Almost all of the things that we call permanent in our world are, in reality, temporary at best. And yet our souls cry out for something that is lasting, something rock solid that does not change with the changing times. Something to which we can anchor ourselves during the storms of life. The good news is that something of such permanence exists! The prophet Isaiah said it best, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (40:8).

God’s word is permanent. His truth has always existed and always will. You won’t wake up tomorrow and find that the rules are different. In a capricious, constantly changing world, I take great comfort in this reality. In fact, I have anchored my soul to the Christ of this immutable Word. As we celebrate His resurrection this Lord's Day, it is my prayer that you have, too.

-----Phil LeMaster

The Real Proof the Unisex Movement Is a Hoax

I never really believed much in the unisex movement that began a generation ago. After all, the Bible says "male and female created He them." But just in case you still wonder about it all, I have a sure-fire way of proving to you that there is a world of difference between the sexes. Just go shopping with a woman for a day.

A woman will travel a dozen miles and spend an extra $5 on gasoline to save 15 cents on a bottle of ketchup and feel good about the experience. A man will grab a jar of Del Monte's off the shelf and never look at the price. He just knows that it is the ketchup that pours slower and that's endorsed by Michael Jordan.

A woman will spend an hour of her time (she's paid $15 per hour at work) to clip coupons which will save her $5 at the grocery store. Most men have never willingly used a coupon in their entire lives.

A woman will buy ten cans of gnu meat because it is on sale ten for $3.95, although none of her family really likes it and she probably won't use ten cans of it during the next millennium. Why? It's on sale, you silly thing!

If it is true that a woman has a gene for bargain hunting, it is also true that she has another for comparison shopping. A woman will go into a store and find an item which she likes. She will try it on and find that it fits perfectly and looks great on her. Does she buy it? Certainly not! You know better than that! The game is not over until she has gone to at least a dozen other stores searching for the same or a similar item at a better price. Six exhausting hours later she returns to the first store and the first item and makes her purchase. Her husband is exasperated, but she has only done what any normal woman would do.

A man, by comparison, will walk into an automobile show room and purchase a $30,000 truck in less than ten minutes. As long as it is not pink and has a V-8 engine and a gun rack behind the seat, he's satisfied.

I noticed something else different about women in this regard. When they get home at the end of a shopping day, they have to show off their purchases to every other woman in a mile radius, sort of like a fisherman displaying the catch of the day. I could go on, but I think you have the point.

No, you will never convince me that women are even remotely the same as men. With a Mom, a sister, a wife and two daughters, I've shopped with too many of them to ever be fooled again.

-----Phil LeMaster

Shattered Dreams?

It just shattered. No forceful blows, no errant objects slammed against it, no body tosses. I went into the kitchen one winter evening and heard a crinkling sound coming from the direction of the patio doors in our then Grayson, Kentucky home. I pulled back the curtain and was shocked to see that the glass in one door was fragmenting into a million pieces.

The glass was still in place and looked rather artistic with its mosaic design, especially when the sun caught it just right. Of course, removal was necessary, calling for a whole new set of doors; frames, hardware and all.

I was questioned by our insurance adjuster and a repairman at some length.
"What happened?" they asked.
"Nothing," I replied.
"Nothing?" They continued.
"Nothing," I said with more emphasis the second time.

Of course, I didn’t really mean nothing. Obviously, one look at the door and you knew something had happened, but you understand my answer, don't you? I mean, to the best of our knowledge, neither Teresa nor I had done anything to produce the particular problem.

That's the way life is sometimes, is it not? Difficulties and problems appear out of thin air with no obvious origin. Maybe it is a health concern we wake up with one morning. We went to bed fine, but daybreak finds us writhing in pain. We search our minds as to what caused it, but come up empty. But still the ache persists.

Or our adult child gets into trouble. We rehearse our child-rearing practices and try to find the reason, but are clueless at the end.

Or we give our employer our best efforts for a dozen years and then receive a pink slip one Friday afternoon. We try to figure out how we went so quickly from being an asset to being a liability, but no answer comes.

What do we do when our neat world of cause-and-effect breaks down? When our question "why" bounces off the walls and reverberates back unanswered?

Well, I will tell you what we did with our patio doors. We laughed at our bizarre accident, replaced the doors, and trusted God. It seemed like the sensible thing to do. Please understand the emphasis is on trusting God, not on our stoic acceptance of that which we were unable to change. He'd led us through bigger problems. I knew He could handle this one. And He did!

Panefully yours,
Phil LeMaster

Anybody who knows me knows well that I am no mechanical genius. A faux pas I made several years ago illustrates the point perfectly.

The rearview mirror had fallen off of our ‘91 Lumina. It is a simple problem to fix and one that a third-grader could handle. I got the little regluing kit from a local auto supply store and carefully went about reading the instructions before doing the repair. I wanted to do it right!

There is only one basic step. You reglue the metal piece that holds the mirror in place to the windshield. The piece is beveled on one side so that the mirror will slide down over it. All you have to do is make sure you glue the beveled side to the windshield. A friend who had replaced a mirror a few days before even reminded me of this fact before I tackled the job.

You guessed it. I glued the non-beveled side to the windshield. Then I let it set over night so that it would be sure to hold. When I went to attach the mirror the next morning, I discovered my mistake. And you talk about a product that works--the metal piece was superglued in place!

I won't tell you how I finally got the metal piece loose (or how many man-hours it took), but the experience left me feeling that I had secured a place in the Mechanically Declined Hall of Fame.

It reminded me of that old joke about the man who had some less than intelligent workers sodding his front lawn. From time to time he would yell out the window, "Green side up!" Someone needed to be yelling at me, "Beveled side in!"

You're laughing at me and I am laughing, too. The simple truth is that I am not gifted in the area of mechanics. (Well, let's be honest, I am a mechanical moron.) But that's okay. I realize that God has given me other talents that I can use in serving him.

The real tragedy would be if I spent much time lamenting my mechanical ineptitude instead of using the abilities God has given me to His glory. God has gifted us all differently. Our job is to identify these gifts and get busy using them in the work of the Kingdom. From now on, I will leave auto repair jobs, even the simple ones, to someone else. I have plenty of other tasks to keep me busy!
-----Phil LeMaster