BOLT BUCKET

OLD BOLTS IN A BUCKET

          (today I was loaned out from the pulp mill to the powerhouse, to work on the ash sluice system; after the job was completed, I picked up the old bolts and put them in a ten-quart pail for disposal)

          The next stop is the scrap metal dumpster.  From there, who knows?!  Maybe the scrap man will take them to a smelter and they will leave the furnace as iron ingots for their next purpose.  They have served their purpose, fasteners for the sluice line flanges.  But, what next?!

          I am nearly sixty.  Questions of purpose and mortality nag.  I have two grown kids older than one of my crew mates.  I try to be useful and pull my weight; but … they make me a gopher much of the time.  (and, really, they are just, kindly, trying to take care of the old man)

          Against the backdrop of the millennia, what single life really matters?  That question surfaces.  Seemingly, we are only drops in a great river of human history.  The Cosmic Coach calls some good plays and makes a few look good.  But, even they play only a few seasons and then hang up their cleats.

          Growing old gracefully might be the point.  Sure, hold it together while “in the flange”.  But, soon, parts are replaced and new bolts installed.  The old ones go in the bucket and we are then tossed in the dumpster.

          I started out my existence from ore dug out of an iron mine, sent to a smelter to be refined, and then to a fastener manufacturer.  Then I was bought by this mill and ended up here in the power house holding together this flange.  Did my job for years.  Maybe I will continue on as a paper weight, for a while.  But, rust and stress have taken their toll.

          I do believe that I will be recycled and live on.  I will have a new form and live on, serving some new purpose.  Maybe I will even be forged and hammered into a sword for the angels?!

She’s The One!

She’s The One!

                Recently I saw a picture of my grandson holding hands with a little girl at church.  Their parents are church friends; and, everybody thinks it is “cute”!  But, it reminds me of crushes and girlfriends in my life.  I was a bashful child who was a “secret admirer” who would skip one box in the mandatory, elementary school, “no-child-left-behind” valentine card distribution.  “…she might see me…” was my nonsensical, but very sincere, fear?!  I walked home from school a different route and slipped her card into her mom’s mailbox.  (wonder if her mother smiled when she checked the mail?!  and, what did her daughter think?)  And, before my parents moved us out of state, we went to our church, one more time; and, there she was!  two rows in front of us!  I had never seen her there before.  And, I never saw her again.  But, I was obsessed.  I even thought I might see her at the Christian college I attended years  later.  But, Heaven said, “…she is not the one…”

                There were two others before this fifth-grade infatuation.  Lisa, who looked like Snow White, let me steal a kiss in the first grade!  (She was not asleep; but, maybe I was charming?!)  In the third grade, Cynthia, who looked like Cinderella, stole my heart and inspired the cupid-heart on my three-ring binder.  She never saw it; but, my teacher did, once.  She just smiled and I blushed.  God alone knows where these two ended up and how life has treated them.  But, he whispered, “…she is not the one…”

                There was a serious high school flame and even a college friend.  God slammed the door on one and gently eased shut the door on the other.  One is still a friend, and the other (who came back my junior year married that summer!) is in Tennessee, somewhere.  God said, “…she is not the one…”

                Towards the end of my junior year in Bible college, I signed up for a spring-break campaign.  (Spring-breaks at this college were not beaches, bikinis, and booze – but, rather, Bibles and banging doors for Jesus!)  Off to NC we went to help a small church share Jesus with its town for a week.

                Saturday, at daylight, we were two hours down the road toward NC, at a breakfast restaurant.  I looked around at the others on the campaign, eating at several booths, and thought, “…she’s the one…”  Mahogany locks down past her shoulders; laughing with her table-mates; “…shapely and spiritual?!”  I wondered?

                I informed one of her carpoolers that he was swapping cars with me for the rest of the trip!  Then the courtship began.  When we paired up on Monday morning for our door-knocking efforts, the leader asked for us all to pair-up, to volunteer teams.  From the back row of the church auditorium, I quickly announced, pointing to her, up front, “…I am walking with her!” (much to her surprise.)  We recently walked around together on Mackinac Island for our 35th anniversary.

                A still small voice whispers to me, often, “she is the one…” – singing beside her at church listening to her alto praise; listening to the grandkids laugh at her bedtime stories; driving to work with the lunch box she has packed for me; quietly admiring her face on a sleepless night – I hear Him say “she is the one.”  And, I fully expect to look around in heaven and, taking her hand, whisper to myself, “she’s the one…”

Proverbs 18:22 (NIV)

22 He who finds a wife finds what is good

    and receives favor from the Lord.

Proverbs 31:10-11 (NIV)

10 A wife of noble character who can find?

    She is worth far more than rubies.

11 Her husband has full confidence in her

    and lacks nothing of value.