On the turn of a moment.

It still stands.

Maybe I built it on the correct day because when I passed it yesterday it was still standing but what a contrast of the view I beheld. I am guessing that it was too wild a day for there to be many passing so it has been allowed to stand. But it has weathered the storms and is still blending into the world around.

I have a feeling that it will be like so many other such mounds I have erected it will be a reminder of the impermanence of all things. It will take but a moment and a fast decision for somebody to decide it has stood long enough.

How things can change in a moment of decision,, or indecision.

A local farmer hired a man to work for him. He told him his first task would be to paint the barn and said it should take him about three days to complete. But the hired man was finished in one day. 

The farmer set him to cutting wood, telling him it would require about 4 days. The hired man finished in a day and a half, to the farmer's amazement. 

The next task was to sort out a large pile of potatoes. He was to arrange them into three piles: seed potatoes, food for the pigs, and potatoes that were good enough to sell. The farmer said it was a small job and shouldn't take long at all. At the end of the day, the farmer came back and found the hired man had barely started. "What's the matter here?" the farmer asked. 

"I can work hard, but I can't make decisions!" replied the hired man.

When I left school I started work in Dunfermline. Part of my job involved the killing of animals. Strange job for one who had turned down work in the local naval base because I did not wish to work in a place associated with weapons of war. A moment of decision. 

I was kind of stuck having made such a decision and having no qualifications. I applied for a job in London as a meat inspector. Between the time of the interview and the offer of the job, I had met a minister who had persuaded me to help writing music and hymns. In deciding to help even though I did not believe in a god on that decision the future pattern of my life changed. 

I never accepted the job, and the rest is history. Minister then teacher all to follow.

Were they the correct decisions, who will ever know? Such is the way of decisions.

A husband and wife, prior to marriage, decided that he'd make all the major decisions and she the minor ones. After 20 years of marriage, he was asked how this arrangement had worked. "Great! in all these years I've never had to make a major decision." 

Now, why does that sound kind of familiar? 

It may be true that there are two sides to every question, but it is also true that there are two sides to a sheet of flypaper, and it makes a big difference to the fly which side he chooses. 

I have often considered how things might have been if I had gone off to London.  I would never have studied, never gone to university and life might have been easier, or it may have been harder such is the turn of a moment.

So if we are facing a moment of decision the words of my father.

When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble.

Have a wo nd  er  f ul day. As I mumble my way on with my day.