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