Lesson from the Septic Tank

I'm just guessing, but I suppose many people in our country have never had the experience of getting a shovel and digging out the dirt around a septic tank lid so the Septic Guy could back up his tank truck and suck the 1500 or so gallons of sewage out.
Step One: have a good idea where the tank lid is. Start digging. The tank is below ground and the top has a lid at least a foot-and-a-half square. Some (ours) have two lids. Its usually a foot or so of digging (Hint: backfill with some sand; next time the digging will be easier.).
Step Two: get out of the way. The Septic Guy gets paid to do the rest and he doesn't need your help. He's got this big tank truck with what can only be described as the world's largest shopvac.
Note: sometime after step two, you have to do what every man has to do.
You have to look. Down into the tank. Where all that you flush down the toilet ends up.
It's interesting.
And, of course, it smells like...well, you know...
Ideally, all you're going to see is what is supposed to be flushed down a toilet; toilet paper and yesterday's ravioli. Except its not as recognizable as that.
In reality, you see things that aren't supposed to be there.
For instance, someone has been eating candy bars and flushing the wrappers. Snickers.
Someone is flushing baby wipes.
I don't know why, but I also saw some small cylindrical white plastic. I'm not sure what it was. It looked like a medicine bottle top. And some other unidentifiable objects made of materials not suitable for septic fields.
So, I've got to have the annual talk with the kids. "Don't flush stuff down the toilet. Or sink, for that matter."

I'ts probably just a coincidence, but I thought about Sunday school class last week. We were learning about prayer. One member mentioned that our prayer requests are typically, "help so-and-so to feel better," or "pray for ____'s health issue." We might even mention that a person has "spiritual needs." But the note was made that we just don't get very personal or vulnerable.

To be rather blunt with you, I'm thinking that our prayers should sometimes be like septic tank cleaning.
We should call God up and and say, "come here and take the lid off the hidden junk in my life and clean it out."
I'm a pastor. I know these things. There is stuff in my life and your life and every Christian's life that just shouldn't be there. And as long as it's hidden and no one can smell it or see it, we figure it can't be doing anyone any harm.
But it is.
See, the stuff that gets flushed into a septic system and shouldn't can be very costly in the long run. It will ruin the field. It'll cost thousands of dollars to put a new one in.
The stuff in a Christian that doesn't belong there is costly, too. We cost Jesus much too much for us to ruin ourselves by ignoring the hidden junk.
I suggest we get more intimate in our prayer lives and let God take a load of... well, you know...out of us. And the sooner the better.
This world needs sweet, real Christians. Let's you and I be just that.

Mom

I lost my dad last week.
He was 86 and over the last couple of years was really slowing down.
Being a rough carpenter took its toll on his body over the years.
I did a little of that work and I can vouch that it is physically demanding.
Dad's fingers were perpetually cracked. He used to try various ointments to soothe and soften them, but it was an act of futility. He had some cancer taken off his face and neck. It wasn't that real bad kind. So he learned to keep out of the sun late in life. Dad almost always wore light colored carpenter's overalls when he worked. He called them his "ducks." I can see him in them as I write. He didn't use carbide blades in his saws and he could flip a saw over and sharpen it quickly with the file he kept with him. At home when a neighbor used a saw, he would hear it screaming and remark something about using a dull blade. I've learned to hear the same thing. Dad was a smart man and he could look at a set of blueprint a tell you right away what would work and what wouldn't. His math skills were excellent. If measurements didn't add up, he knew it . And he knew how to fix it and make it right.
At his funeral there was the usual apearance of pictures from his life. I've attended many funerals and it always strikes me how a family tries to summarize a man's life by a few hundred pictures on a felt board. [don't get me wrong, I like looking at the fond memories.]
One picture showed him with his arm in a sling. He was in his late forties, I think. Dad was up a ladder one day at work [sometime after luch break] and it slipped and he rode it down and landed and broke his arm just below the elbow. Dad was no sissy; had a crew of men needing him so he worked the rest of the day, drove home, and then Mom took him to he hospital. I distinctly remember mom crying that afternoon when he got home from work. I was scared, too. His arm was way too big. Even for a man with big arms. And dad had good sized arms.

It's been a week or so since dad died. Mom has been in that strange world only widows occupy. She has been very busy: social security, buying graves, funeral arrangements, bank changes, insurance changes, thank you cards, death notifications to everybody and their brother...
She's had good help, too. Family has supported in every way. She's hosted, entertained, encouraged, and comforted others.
But I stopped by last night and mom looks tired; maybe even haggard. Her hug was longer and closer than I remember it being in the past.
She told her kids that she needs to be alone. I believe her. She's got to grieve. She's got to have the space and time to cry. It's her turn.
She's going to need her friends - soon. But for the time being she needs some down time to process the reality that her friend and lover and partner for 60 years is gone.
Dad did a great job of protecting and supporting and leading.
But he's gone.
I hope I can be there for mom when she needs me.