It was with the help of the Holy Spirit that I was able to pull off the coup of calling in an independent air-conditioning technician to assess my neighbor’s failing machine.  The GallettAir plumber had left the situation up to someone who’d open the sheet rock ceiling to look for a leaking water pipe.  Well, my Abalene technician did that and more; he investigated the interior of the neighbor’s leaking air-conditioner, and found the leak!

The rest is up to the insurance companies.  But it goes to show the advisability of seeking supernatural help.  I’m a practical man, and not overly religious, but I know when I’m strapped.

A man has to know his limitations, and where to go for help.  That’s exactly what I did.

He was my son, and I chose to identify him as “mountain climber” on the family tombstone.  But the authorities at Holy Rood (Holy Cross) Cemetery felt that name was inappropriate, and persuaded me to choose the better name of “English Professor.”  That’s what he was, an adjunct English Professor.  I am proud of that.

He did have a proclivity for rock climbing, and only God knows the virtual mountains he climbed in life.  We all climb mountains of our aspirations, and that may have appealed to his imagination and urged him to carry it out on such peaks as the Half-Dome in Yosemite.  That climb involves an overnight bivouac, hanging on the face of the dome.

I gave him my best guidance, but in this universe God created, there are many byways and wrong paths.  Paul, I did my best, but I’m merely human.

People misinterpret reality, believe these misinterpretations, and they become lies.  Loretta got angry at our upstairs neighbor for letting his air-conditioner get to the point where it leaked water into our apartment, and she told him to stay out.  Bob interpreted this to mean she wouldn’t let the insurance adjuster in, and there’s the lie.

What are we going to do with humanity?  Christ must have asked that question often.  He gave his all.  A man can’t do more than give his life for his fellow human beings.

But what can I do with Bob?  I’ll try to talk with him, though he may continue to believe he’s right.  In the end, I have to put it in the hands of God.

The water leak into our apartment continued as long as Bob upstairs had his air conditioner on.  It stopped when he turned it off.  The firm with whom we both had a contract did not seem able to determine the source of the leak, and let it go at that.  Well, I prayed about it, and decided to call some other AC company.  Abalene from Syosset sent the grandson, Eric, of its founder.  He had twenty years’ experience with air conditioners.

He got to the source right away.  He exposed the coils in Bob’s air conditioner, and machined open a rusted reservoir that was full and overflowing.  (It wasn’t supposed to be).  That was the leak!  The drainpipe couldn’t handle it.  That said, I thank the Holy Spirit!

I didn’t know who I was going to get when I struck off on my own.  But I believe we live in a created world that follows rules, and one of them says if the leak stops when the air-conditioner stops, chances are it’s the air-conditioner.

Good Fortune

Sometimes good comes of the bad contingencies the Lord sends us.  Last night it was a water leak from the apartment above us.  Somehow their air conditioner was to blame.  This was not definite, but when our neighbor shut off the AC, the leak stopped.

We called the apartment parent company to look beneath the sheet rock for a drainage leak, and we’ll have to wait to see.  In the meantime Loretta got angry at the neighbor for not replacing his twenty-one year old air conditioner.  We’ll wait to see what comes of that.

I’m open to all kinds of good outcomes.  Life has not made me cynical.  Maybe the upstairs neighbor gets a new air conditioner.