WARNING: This is NOT an ordinary annual letter!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Greetings from the snowy foothills of central Minnesota. This past year, we have been blessed in many ways: big, small, awesome and peculiar.
Each day we seek miracles amidst the ordinary – whether we're coaching an elementary basketball team, singing in the church choir, skiing Spirit Mountain, canoeing the river, cooling off at the beach, handling newborn kittens, planting a garden, relief-pitching a baseball game, picking berries, landing the last bass before school's start, teaching Sunday School, running a cross-country meet, snapping the football, tooting the flute, racing sleds on our hill, exercising the dog or watching the sunrise… Today we share an unlikely blessing.
*******
ALL FLUSHED
"Noah, are you gonna be an engineer or a movie star when you grow up?" Dan asked our first grader as we signed a stack of Christmas photo cards Tuesday night. Dad was still processing why – last week – his son would take a discarded razor from the wastebasket, drop it in the toilet, watch it float, push the lever and flush the water.
"I wanted to see if it would go down," Noah finally confessed, but not before Mom had spent days failing to clear "a stubborn clog." Then I began an interrogation, "Did somebody put something strange down the toilet?"
When Isaac and Aaron denied flushing a foreign object, I focused on Noah who "couldn't remember" but answered leading questions.
"If you know it wasn't a wet wipe," I pressed, "then I think you know what went down."
Noah's razor revelation spurred a chain reaction. First Dad declared: All Number Twos must go in the downstairs toilet. Next he called his dad. They decided the razor must be trapped inside the toilet. That would require disassembly and new parts. The weekend seemed the best time to gather such tools and equipment. Meanwhile, the boys asked daily: Can we poop upstairs yet?
Saturday evening, Dan took the toilet apart. As I tidied the kitchen, he came out of the bathroom with a disgusted look, "Somebody's gonna have to clean the bathroom. There's crap everywhere."
"Don't worry about that yet," I said. "Do you need help getting out the razor?"
"Yeah," Dan replied. "Maybe you could lift the toilet while I run the snake."
I walked into the bathroom to see: One throw rug rolled back; Plumbing tools and equipment on the other two; Brown splashes on the wall and floor; and a rag stuffed tight into the floor drain. One whiff revealed a sewer stench.
"Somebody must have pooped up here in the last day," he cringed. "The toilet water was clear before I started."
For more than an hour, we worked – leaning the toilet at various angles and snaking the metal coil through the porcelain pipe – in attempt to release the razor. Twice the razor eluded Dan's fingers while extended inside the slippery slot. Frustrated, he washed his hands and walked out asking, "Do we have a wire coat hanger?"
"Nope," I said trying to stretch my numb leg on which the toilet bowl laid. The fumes reminded me of working in my parents' chicken barn. When Dan returned with a heavy-gauged wire, I told him so and added, "The only difference is, back then, we wore face masks."
Dan should have worn one. He looked as serious as a surgeon, bending his tool and inserting it up into the bowels of the toilet. He dug for what seemed like eons. As I held it steady," I thought: Maybe we should just get a new toilet?
"Got it!" Dan said holding up the razor. I smiled, "Hooray!"
His face tensed, "You know! Noah should be spanked."
"A lot of good that would do," I replied. "I'm just thankful he told the truth. We knew what to look for and where to go. I don't think he'll try anything like that again."
Dan hrr-muffed. While I bleached down the bathroom, he reported the story of the razor's release to the boys. Noah repented, "I'm sorry. I not gonna do that again."
Days later, we two discussed Christmas gifts. Dad had his sons all figured out: For Isaac, a watch to time his running progress; For avid-fisherman Aaron, a fly rod to challenge his skill; As for Noah, he said,
"I think we should get him a game… maybe "Operation" – something he can test. I bet Noah's gonna be an engineer."
While our eighth and sixth graders faced off in a game of chess at the dining room table, I pulled out the stack of Christmas cards and a few pens. "Let's get this done, so I can mail these out," I pleaded. Dan picked up a pen and asked, "Noah, are you gonna be an engineer or a movie star when you grow up?
"What's an engineer?" Noah asked. Dad teased, "Someone who figures out how things work – like… whether a razor will go down the toilet."
As Noah bowed his head, Dad continued, "If you're gonna be a movie star, then autographing all these Christmas cards is good practice."
Noah spouted, "I'm gonna be an engineer movie star. And, you can sign all my autographs – with your poop hand!"
*******
Sometimes we must dig deep before we can understand how life's intricacies come full circle… Why – when we do curious things – we must take responsibility for our actions, reach out of the depths, take an offered hand, express remorse and await: mercy, forgiveness and unending love. Only, then we can find joy in our trials.
Sharing ours and wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2008 amidst life's EVERYDAY blessings.
An "Uffda," I know. But...
Remember: Even Jesus used mud to make the blind man see.
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