Rules for Repairing a Toilet

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Mark Ashley

“You’re not supposed to have to use a hacksaw to repair a toilet!”  That’s what I said fuming in frustration the other evening as I was trying to complete a repair on a toilet.  It was supposed to be a simple repair – replace the flush handle.  The lever on the old one had rusted out so the chain to the flapper couldn’t be connected.  I got out the only tool I thought I would need for the job – a pair of pliers to unscrew the nut holding the handle in place.  Well, the old nut didn’t want to surrender easily.  I yanked and yanked and the pliers kept slipping, though a couple of times I got a small bit of movement.  “Righty-tighty and lefty-loosey,” I kept reminding myself, still not sure if I was tightening or loosening the thing.  Sweat was dripping down my face and my t-shirt was soaked but I was making no progress.  Though I felt like hauling off and hitting the old handle out of its socket, I had enough sense to know you can’t start banging metal out of a porcelain tank and not create greater problems.  But I wasn’t about to give up.  After all, there are times when the man of the house has to make the repair.  And there was no way I was calling my father-in-law for help on this one.  This was supposed to be an easy job.  But with the flat sides of the nut worn away, leaving me nothing to grip with my pliers, I was stuck.  The metal nut wasn’t moving.  Getting desperate, I took my pliers and in frustration, I pulled the handle apart piece by piece hoping somehow I would be able to get the thing off that way, but no luck. So that’s when I went for the hacksaw and about ten minutes later the old handle was removed and the new one installed.  Though I was victorious and my sense of manhood sort of preserved, I still had this troubling thought that the normal replacement of an old toilet handle wasn’t supposed to require the services of a hacksaw.

Later my wife raised the question, “Who says?”

“What do you mean, ‘Who says’? I asked.

“Who says you’re not supposed to have to use a hacksaw?  You got the job done, didn’t you?”

She was right; I had completed the repair, and even though I had to use an unconventional toilet-repair tool to get there, we once again were able to simply push down the handle to flush the toilet instead of having to reach a hand into the water tank and pull the chain.  I had completed the job and that was what I was after.

Who says there aren’t other men who have had to use a hacksaw to repair a toilet handle?  I don’t know of any, but who says I’m alone?  Maybe others are more successful in actually loosening the nut and removing things the conventional way, but who says you can’t just saw it off?  In that moment of frustration, when I felt like I was about to fail at a simple repair, I judged myself to be alone, the only man in the world who had to use a hacksaw on a toilet handle.

That got me to wondering about how many situations in my life I get exasperated with circumstances and how many times I come close to giving up because of some expectation I have of how it ought to be happening?  How many times do I judge myself a failure because what’s supposed to work isn’t, and so I end up having to do things some other unconventional way?  It’s possible to live life as if there was a rule for everything – a right way and a wrong way for every situation you will face, and that just isn’t so.  Sometimes we might like it to be that way.  It would be easier, no uncertainty when making decisions, no dilemmas, no explaining why we do what we do.  Everything would be cut and dry, simple, clearly explained with instructions anyone can read and marked out with unmistakable boundaries everyone can see.

But that’s not how life always works.  I’m not suggesting that “the end justifies the means.”  I’m not recommending we toss rules to the wind, ignore instructions, and let everyone do their own thing.  I am realizing, however, that sometimes it might take a hacksaw to fix a handle.  And that is okay.  It may even yield a job completed!

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Shall We Dance?

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Mark Ashley

I grew up in a “no dancing” context so it would be accurate to conclude that I am no expert on dancing.  The closest I’ve come to any experience is doing the “Hokey-Pokey” and that “shake it all about” still makes me a bit self-conscious.  So I took a little time read up on it.  I learned that in partner dancing the two partners are not equal; one leads and the other follows.  In an improvised dance, the Lead assumes the responsibility of picking the steps that he deems to be best suited for the accompanying music and then leading the Follow to complete the routine of steps and moves.  In a pre-choreographed dance the Lead is responsible to initiate each move.  If the Lead leads and the Follow follows the result is a beautiful, safe dance.

Partner dancing provides an excellent picture of how a Christian and the Holy Spirit work together to produce a dynamic spirituality.  The Holy Spirit knows the music that is playing in our lives at any given moment and determines the steps most suitable.  He then leads the Christian through those moves and if the Christian follows, a beautiful dance plays out, whether it be to music in a major or a minor key.  For our spiritual lives to yield what we long for, we must follow the Lead of the Holy Spirit.

It’s a pretty common Christian experience for the spiritual life to get out of sync.  You can call it barrenness or dryness, but things just don’t seem right; the spiritual seems listless.  When that happens chances are really good that at some point we’ve switched dancing partners.  Someone else has cut in and we’ve let them.  It could be we’re dancing with the world or the devil.  It also could be we decided we want to go solo.  The way I’ve seen it in movies, when someone at the dance doesn’t have a partner, they sit in a chair along the perimeter of the dancefloor and wait to be asked or they go looking for someone to ask.  But when we let someone else cut in, the Holy Spirit doesn’t retreat to the sideline and wait to be asked back in.  No, in fact, He remains standing there, tapping you on the shoulder, trying to cut in Himself.  When we let go of the other partner (repentance) and let the Spirit back into the lead, only then are we dancing the dance we were saved for.  Dwight Edwards puts it this way:

“The Spirit eagerly awaits us to rejoin Him in the dance.  That’s why repentance isn’t working up a new desire or commitment to do right; it’s turning a cold shoulder to those whom we’ve allowed to seduce us away from our original Partner and then rejoining Him in the dance of the ages.  It’s in His arms, with Him in the lead, that we can once again be swept up in divinely orchestrated communion and worship.” (The Revolution Within, p. 152)

I love the picture of the Holy Spirit coming up alongside in the most joyful times of life — like getting married, having a baby, being hired for the job, seeing a loved one arrive home safely, sinking the winning shot — and saying, “Shall we dance?”  And we do, for joy.  I am comforted by the picture of the Holy Spirit coming up alongside in the toughest times of life — like getting the news you have cancer, watching your child struggle, losing your job, or burying a loved one — and hearing Him whisper “Shall we dance?”  And we do.  He leads, we follow and even in the ugliest, scariest, most painful experiences of life, He leads us through the steps and together we create an inspiring dance, one of those performances that brings awe-struck spectators to their feet in thunderous applause.

That, to me, is a great picture of Christian living.  We can’t do it alone.  The Holy Spirit won’t do it for us.  Together, Him leading and us following, it works.

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What I Love about Being a Dad

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Mark Ashley

I am 23 years into the “Dad” thing and I love it!  Deb and I have been blessed with two sons and a daughter.  I vividly remember the day each was born.  Our firstborn came two weeks late; our middle child came two weeks early; and our youngest arrived right on time.  Three different hospitals.  Three different doctors.  Three different experiences but all one tremendous joy.

I view being a dad as a gift from God.  I say that honestly because I am neither the smartest dad, nor the funnest dad, nor the most adventerous dad a kid could wish for.  I don’t qualify for “Best Dad of the Year” award.  The fact that God would entrust me with three precious lives who each have eternal souls is purely His grace!  I love that God has graced me in this way.

Just because I love being a dad doesn’t mean there have never been difficult experiences along the way.  Setting aside what I was doing in order to do what they wanted to do, like wrestling on the floor again, practicing baseball, or playing basketball on a hot afternoon, has sometimes been hard.  Disciplining my children has never been fun – it’s hard.  Watching my children struggle and knowing when to step in and help or when to stay out and let them find their own way has been hard.  Refusing to rescue my children from every problem has not been easy for me, but hard.  Admitting when I’ve been wrong has been hard.  Patiently and consistently doing what I believe to be right as a parent, even without any immediate positive results in my children’s lives, has been hard, especially when doing the right thing did not make them happy.

But I still love being dad for many reasons.

  • I love that my kids are the living legacy of my marriage to the woman I love most.  That makes them very special to me.
  • I love that they confide in their mom.  It demonstrates that what I’ve always seen in her they are also seeing.
  • I love that they call me for help and advice.  It suggests to me that I’ve earned their confidence and respect.
  • I love that they fill our home with the vitality and idealism of youth.  It continually challenges me to enter into it rather than throw cold water on it.
  • I love that they keep me in touch with reality.  In spite of all that they know about me personally, and no matter what I may be to other people, to them I am “Dad.”

So, on this Father’s Day I will just say, “Thank you, God, for letting me be a dad!”

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Creating vs. Critiquing

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Mark Ashley

Disney-Pixar animated movie “Ratatouille”  features a character named Anton Ego.  A restaurant critic, he is one of several obstacles that lies in the way of Remmy realizing his dream of becoming a chef, a rather impossible dream since Remmy is a rat.  The climax of the story comes when Ego is won over by Remmy’s creative culinary skills and writes a glowing review in the next day’s newspaper.  His article makes some inciteful statements about creating vs. critiquing.

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations; the new needs friends.

Creating is more difficult than critiquing.  Creating requires thinking and then doing something with those creative thougthts.  That could mean writing down the notes to a melody that’s  been swirling through your head, or the words to a poem.  It could mean making up a new recipe and trying it out on someone.  It could be proposing a new idea at work.  Whatever the creative acts we engage in, we can be sure that as soon as it’s out there, it will be critiqued by someone else.  And that’s okay; it goes with the territory.  A saying attributed to Harry Truman puts it this way: “If you can’t stand the heat then get out of the kitchen.”

But I still maintain, it’s easier to be a critic than a creator.  That’s why there are more critics than creators.  It’s easy.  It’s easier to criticize music than compose it.  It’s easier to criticize a meal than to cook it.  It’s easier to find fault with a lesson than to teach one.  It’s easier to critique an athlete than to be one.  It’s easier to critique another person’s ideas than it is to have ideas of our own.  Making nothing, doing nothing, and trying nothing new are all easy.

I’ve been on both sides of the creating-critiquing deal, and  I can say from experience, it’s much easier to critique than create.  What we need is more creators and less critics; more who are eager to shake hands with the new, as Ego calls it, instead of stiff-arming it.  Now don’t misunderstand — I’m not saying ideas, actions, and creations should never be critiqued.  I’m just saying it would be invigorating to see greater enthusiasm for the creating end of things than for the critiquing.

The constant voices of criticism in our society are wearisome.  It’s everywhere, even in the church.  Perhaps we need to be reminded that there is no spiritual gift of criticism, and neither is it the fruit of the Spirit.

I like Ego’s last statement: “the new needs friends.”  I want to become a better friend of the new by curtailing the critiquing and encouraging the creative.

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To Think or Not To Think

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Mark Ashley

(This post was written by my wife Debbie.)

Have you ever wondered what a lawn looks like after the sprinkler has been running for 3 hours?  Well, here at the Ashley household, we now know.  Fortunately it was late and dark as we gingerly stepped through the back yard to assess the situation, so it didn’t look too bad.  Puddles dotted the back yard and the garden, with possibly a few washouts of newly planted seeds that can be replanted.  A good hot sunny day will dry it all out.

Now you may be wondering who forgot to turn off the sprinkler.  Well, that is not the point of this article so we will just leave that for you to wonder.  However, this does lead to another question I posed to Mark as we sloshed our way back into the house. (No, I did not ask him how much the water bill will be next quarter, though that thought crossed my mind.) Removing our wet shoes, I speculated on the following consideration related to our current sabbatical :  Either our minds have become too relaxed, or our minds are not yet relaxed enough.  Which one is it? (For those of you who are extremely practical-yes, I realize it could be just plain old forgetfulness, but favor me with your time to pursue this a bit further..)

Not having been on a sabbatical before, we are experiencing some things for the first time.  So, how do we know when we have relaxed?  Do we think more clearly, do we think about different things, or do we just not think?  Based on our experience of last night, one would think the last option.

However, a different thought is beginning to solidify itself in our minds, and it is this:  A
sabbatical is not so much time to think or time not to think as much as it is time to figure out what God is thinking.  It is a concentrated, slower, undistracted time to meditate on God’s thoughts, to pray about God’s thoughts, and to formulate a plan of action to
carry out God’s thoughts.  The opportunity to do this has been abundantly rewarding and absolutely refreshing to us.  For this we are grateful and look forward to the remaining 10 days of our sabbatical, eventually with a dry lawn!

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