My man maid sings sweet songs on Saturday mornings.
I call him a man maid because he is a man and he is a maid –
since he cleans my office and calls himself a maid, I think it is politically
correct for me to call him that also. Mostly, I don’t call him anything.
He is so quiet, I don’t know he is around until I hear the Tab cans
rolling from my garbage can into his big black one. He is a silent cleaner.
Jewel has the face of a buttery soft leather chair – the
color of chicory coffee with a big dollop of sweet cream. A lived-in,
comfortable face with wrinkles and creases in all the right places. Crinkly brown eyes peer over the top of his
wire framed glasses but quickly look away when he catches you looking at
him. In his salt & pepper, close-cropped
hair, the salt-seasoned hairs far outnumber the peppered ones. His slight frame often seems overpowered by
the huge black garbage can and vacuum cleaner he pushes through the
office. Dressed in khaki pants with his
shirt tail tucked in neatly, he reminds me more of a retired school teacher
than a man who keeps my horribly messy office somewhat straight. Though I have never heard him complain, I’m
pretty sure he cringes at the sight of the room at the end of the hall.
Last Saturday, I came into the office to catch up on some
work that I did not get to last week.
Sure, I played a little on Friday and just did not get to some of the
paperwork on my desk. I don’t usually
mind coming in on a Saturday. It is
always quiet. Phones are not ringing. Emails not chiming. Good time to concentrate and knock out some
paperwork. Still, it was a beautiful,
sunny Saturday and I was in the office.
Feeling a little lonely and not very appreciated, I was plowing through
the stuff, dividing the work into priority stacks: To Do Now, To Do Next, Don’t Want to Do, and
Ain’t Ever Going to Do. An organized mess. Real scientific
stuff.
In the midst of all the work and self-pity, I realized quite
suddenly that I was hearing music. I
stopped and listened as a rich tenor voice like brown velvet rolled gently down
the hallway from the conference room to my office and brushed softly against my conscious. Did someone leave on a radio?
There are 9 hard-working, dedicated professionals and one
high-strung, loud-mouthed sales manager who work in this office. Ringing phones, calls to meetings, visitors in
and out – there is never a moment during the week when there is calmness in
this place. But today, the usually bustling office of one
of the area’s largest residential building companies was silent….. A perfect backdrop for the
antique gospel music that was bathing the hallways and offices and cleansing each
corner with warm words and rich notes. Though I could not really make out the lyrics,
I could hear that Jewel’s sweet song was seasoned with words like “victory” and
“savior” and “praise.”
Like Zacchaeus, this wee little man is so often hidden and
rarely heard; yet today his voice is covering this place like a healer’s hands covering the sick. Without seeing his face and just from the sound
of his sweet voice, I realized that Jewel is a truly happy man. Jewel has something rare and beautiful and it is not just his lovely voice. Pure happiness bursts from him with each
note he sings.
In our smiley-faced world of happy hours, happy meals, and
happily-ever-afters, so few of us are ever truly happy. We often confuse joy or pleasure for happiness.
A big hot fudge sundae makes me joyful.
A great book makes me smile. A
new pair of shoes delights me. For a
minute, an hour, sometimes a day. But, what
about the kind of happiness that flows through you and spills out all around
you. Happiness like Jewel’s.
I sat and listened and pondered.
I let Jewel’s sweet sounds wash over me like a warm spring rain. And, I know.
Happiness doesn’t come from the things we accomplish or the stuff we
accumulate. It can’t be bought or collected. It can be threatened but not taken away. It can be offered but not given away.
Denis Waitley, respected author and nationally known
motivation speaker and writer describes happiness this way:
Happiness
cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the
spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
In Jewel's music I heard not only happiness, but also love and grace and gratitude. The same things I have in my life but never take the time to sing about.
I straighten up my stacks of paperwork and decide to finish
it on another day. I tip-toed quietly out
the back door to keep from interrupting Jewel’s happiness. I decided that I need to tell the person I love
most in the world….. “I heard sweet music today and it reminded me of you.”
Smiling, I got into my car and turned off Fox News. And, I began to sing.
