It lay fallen a little distance from the clothesline that held my clothes. I walked over and looked at it, they were certainly not mine; gaping holes stared back at me, and these were not the tears carefully made by a tailor, as many modern pants have, but those that came from genuine brushes with earth and stone. And then I realized whose they were; I saw the scaffolding on the side of my building and knew they belonged to some painter who had at the end of the day, hung his pant on the bamboo to dry and the wind must have laid it low.
And suddenly those holes, those ruptures all along the thin fabric brought tears to my eyes. I knew that split above the knee came from stretching to reach a bamboo above, that gaping hole; a brush against a harsh relentless parapet wall, that thinning, that fading of fabric, from water hose that mercilessly while curing the cement, was unmindful of poor worker in its way.
And in my mind’s eye I pick up the pant, and call my driver, “Take it to a tailor and get it darned!” I whisper, then shake my head, “No let it be! Those tears are the scars of a hero!”
Instead, I put it in my washing machine, with my sophisticated hole-less clothes, and later, clean but still torn, I put it on the line, near where I’d found it.
He came and took it from the line. He held it up, a little confused seeing it clean, “Wear it with pride!” I whispered, “I know, each hole, each tear was done for wife, for children, for family! Each rip, each run, each rent, was a sacrifice!”
Somewhere up, I hear a voice, “So was mine Bob!”
“Yes Lord,” I say, “I know!”
I look and see the One above, looking down at His earth below, holding, uplifting, caring for each one of His creation, and then I look at His hands and feet, and shudder.
Gaping holes greet my gaze.
“They were nails, that pierced through my hands and feet!”
“Yes Lord!” I say.
“But I wear them with joy!”
I watch the painter as he climbs high, risking life an
d limb, as he paints my building with shades that look delightful to the eye. The torn pant, now washed clean, smiles back at me, just as the One above smiles, and says, “Those cruel holes they made through me, were worth it my son, because as I see you and others painted white, I wear those holes with pride!”
There are tears in my eyes as I walk downstairs to write, and I’m not sure they are for the painter and his pants, or for a God who gave his life, or both, one wearing torn pants, freeing his family, the Other, torn hands and feet, freeing you and me..!

******************************************

IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE BOB’S BANTER EVERYDAY, PLEASE SEND YOUR NAME AND WHATSAPP PHONE NO TO [email protected]

******************************************