That is Completely UN Scriptural

So Friday morning I was in bed praying and what not and working with some positive intention type techniques I had read about. One of them was doing good for goodness’ sake, entering something called the “narrow gate“,  the mother of my children and I getting along better, etc. Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it! I know this probably sounds like me wearing a big flashing neon sign saying hey look at me, but that is not the purpose here…. read on and enjoy, hopefully!

I had fallen back into sleep after prayer, when my mother of the mother of my children calls me up. She asks me if I was still in the area (I was staying at a friend’s house to be closer to my kids) and if I know anything about plumbing. At first I think, “uh-oh”, but then realize my prayer had already been answered – chuckling internally. So I said, yes – it’s not my speciality, but I can do it if it is PVC. She said it was. She told me that a pipe had broken and she could use my help. Service with a smile here we come! As I fumbled around in the dark looking for my superhero cape, I began to form a plan. I told her that she needed to get the cleaner and glue; a saw; and extra PVC fittings ready so that we did not have any delay. I wanted to be there for my daughter at her Valentine’s celebration and we needed to have this project completed
by 1:30 PM.

I quickly got dressed and armed the alarm (so I think). I exit the building and put my friend’s dog back in the fenced area. I drive my car for the exit and lo and behold there is a problem. My friend had locked the gate. Ths was a major problem to performing service with a smile. I called my friend and he told me that to get through the gate,
I would need to open it from the other side. I begin to think of the allegory involved now. Wow – the gate to perform service has been locked and must be opened from the other side. He tells me to go get the key to the shed out of the house and that the tools would be located in the shed. I follow his instructions and realize I had not
properly armed the alarm! The shed possessing the key to the gate is then opened. I go and retrieve a wrench and proceed to work on loosening the gate from the other side. I swing the gate open and drive my car safely through. Nice metaphors here. Perhaps sometimes a gate is just a gate, yet I felt this was in alignment with my prayer.
My prayer was about entering through the “narrow gate” that morning. Perhaps the message could be that to get through the gate, I would have to have friend tell me about  another key and open it from the other side maybe and that it would be me with challenges that could be overcome? Who knows!

I then call my friend up and tell him I am through and decide to explain the allegory of the gate. I tell him I’m going “injun” (instead of talking about buffalo and owls, it is about gates and keys though) on him  and relate the story in my best big chief voice. He loves the story. I apologize for going injun, but had to tell someone.

I arrive at the mother of the mother of my children’s house to inspect the situation. This is worse than I thought. We use a screwdriver to unlock a panel leading
underneath her home. It smells like funk. Funk. Funk. Funk. I begin to see more allegory maybe. If the house is a symbol of my mind or her mind maybe, we are now about to get into the funk and crawl around in it. Perhaps this would be what pyschologists call the subconscious. All that gunk that is buried that we don’t want to deal with that is
underneath the surface of our mind! In an even further twist, the pipe that busted is a T joint direct underneath the bed where my wife used to sleep for over a year. I think about the allegory – a busted hot water pipe under the bed where my wife once slept while we were separated. Hot water is spraying underneath her bed. Can’t figure
anythign here for allegory, but I go on. I am told that the fitting and pipe are out in the shed. So I head outside and see a sea of cold water (about 60 feet in length and width) about 1 -2 feet deep between me and the shed. I have no rubber boots. Service with a smile I say – shall we change into a different person simply because of the cold?
Off we go – the cold becomes comfortable after awhile and at last I make to the door of the shed. I unlock the shed holding the parts and fittings. I search for fittings and find exactly what we need. 3/4 inch pipe – that is what the pipe said when I peered under the house! I grab a T and some couplers and off we go back through the sea of
about 38 degrees!

My mother in law supplies me with clothes for crawling around and off we go. I take a picture of the funk for writing up an inspirational blog article later – hopefully. I smell cat feces and all kinds of funk along the way. I wonder if this is what it was like being a Jewish kid who had to jump underneath a urinal in order to hide from the SS during the Nazi operations in WWII. I wonder if it is anywhere close. The cold is all over me, but it starts to become comfortable as my skin numbs. I finally reach the destination armed with pipe cutter, cleaner / glue, and other goodies.

Arrrgggggg – I brought the wrong size pipe! I brought the wrong size pipe! Arrrrggggh! I crawl back out of the tunnel of hell and come back to the surface. Glad to see the light of the sun pouring through the overhead panel, I tell my mother in law – Argggghhhh I got the wrong size pipe. I’m thinking to myself: “Foooool! you got the wrong pipe
size and you knew you should have compared to be sure!!”. So we go to the hardware store amd get the “proper” fittings and such.

We come back and go through the same process again. Arggggh – this pipe does not match! This pipe does not match!  There must be a special kind for hot water! Fool – I knew I should have showed the hardware store guy the piece of pipe that I brought with me to verify! Fool! Arrgggh!

It is time to go see the kids at Valentine’s at school so I rush off. I make it there with 5 minutes to spare. I begin rolling film for a web site for my family. We sit there playing all kinds of valentine’s games. Hannah makes a card that says “Mom and Dad In Love – Time”. I think – oh boy, the mother of my children is going to get upset over that one! Eventually out of the corner of my eye – I spot her, the mother of my children. I think to myself, why does she not come over here and be here for her daughter. Why does
she not come over here? I send Hannah over there to retreive her mother to play valentine’s games, but instead her mother retrieves my daughter! Arrrgggg!
Why is she not participatng in Valentine’s like everyone else! I say to myself – okay, give her a couple minutes to adjust and then go greet her. Perhaps she feels awkward or nervous. This is all about the kids – remember!

So I go up there and she is nervous. I say to her – joking with her to break the ice, hey are you too cool for us – you can come play Valentine’s bingo! It will be fun! She smiles and then points and says that it is “too much” – to much going on over there for her. She says it is too new and she can’t handle all that. I think to myself… okay
– she can’t be around me and would rather not play valentine’s games for my daughter’s special party, rather than overcome the awkwardness.
That is the part of me that feels rejected sometimes, but I remain aware enough to feel it this time and not get sucked in! Okay, I’ll get out of here to make it easy on her then! I say to her – “Where is our son’s party?”. She tells me the room. I watch her and she smiles several times, but is nervous. I guess I forgot how good looking I am
🙂

Off to my son’s we go. I take Corbin back to April’s and show him that my car is a transformer ( I had recently added a shiny tranformer logo just for the kids to my car). He loves it and asks me if the car can transform. Mamma shows up to the house and runs to tell her about it. I then get out of her hair and go back to my mother in law’s
armed with the write pipe fittings and pipe. I crawl back through the tunnel of hell and fix the pipe in record time before the sun goes down. I completed my work for the day and even remembered to do a couple of my mind exercises along the way!

As I think over the day, my mother in law and I walk through the events and the potential allegory and I retell some of it in my “injun” big chief voice as we sit in front of the fire-place. She makes me a quick vegetarian dinner and off I go – back to my friend’s house. His best LIVE OAK tree had fallen and we needed to move it before it fell on his shed! This was work for the next day though. Ah, the allegory for tomorrow! My friend sees a budlight commercial on TV and asks me – “Shohn, so what does this budlight commericial mean?”. I say to him, “I don’t know – perhaps that one is just for you”.

Once a person told me that she her phone kept calling at 3AM in the morning and it was driving her bonkers. I said to her, “Perhaps it is a wake-up call for you? :)” She says….. “Ooooooohhhhh, I never thought of it like that.”