I was speaking the other day with one of my nieces. As our conversation progressed, I shared about a particular person who always seems able to irritate me. My niece informed me that this person was my “sandpaper”. Perhaps there is a connection here with the phrase “rubs me the wrong way”. I am grateful that there are few people who have this effect on me, and I hope that I don’t have that effect on many people.
Anyone who has ever worked with wood knows that sandpaper is used to “sand” (smooth) rough lumber, but the key is to rub “with the grain”. Ultimately this process both smooths and polishes raw wood. “Rubbing against the grain” not only does not often smooth the wood but oftentimes destroys the sandpaper.
I learned a deeper lesson from my niece than she probably anticipated. My father died in February 1982 when I was sixteen. The following New Year’s Day my beloved cousin Bertha Lay brought me well over a hundred books, and I determined to turn the finished upstairs room in the house we rented into a library. Dad would never have permitted this had he been alive and well, for he never liked anything changed in the house unless it was his idea. Mother, however, was agreeable to anything that she felt would do me no harm, so I proceeded with plans for my library.
Of course I had no money to buy shelves. My mother talked to my sister Ruby, whose husband Buddy worked at Schubert’s Lumber Company. Buddy was able to get several eight foot board lengths of “scrap lumber” for me. He delivered them to me. How wonderful those pine boards smelled! One side of each was practically smooth, ready for sanding, but the other side was rough and would have taken much intensive labor to make smooth enough for use as bookshelves. I worked during the summer on the Summer Youth Program. I used part of that money to purchase sandpaper, clear varnish, shelf brackets and shelving screws to mount those shelves. My good friend Earl Tolliver came over and helped me put them on the walls. Few things in life have ever made me happier than those first library shelves. As they were “scrap lumber”, they would never be perfect, top grade boards, but they were tops with me. Practically every one of those boards is still in use as shelves in my home library thirty-eight years later, continuing to remind me of a wonderful brother-in-law and dear friend.
Upon reflection, those shelves are also images of me. I am in many ways a rough piece of wood, I will never be perfect, but I have been fortunate to encounter many who lovingly challenged me to become a better person. These wonderful people took me as I was, took their time and used their talents to smooth and polish my roughness, making me a piece of wood more fit to be used in fine carpentry. These people are “the sanders” represented by sandpaper that “rubbed with the [finer] grain” of my nature.
Who were these wonderful people? They were my parents, cousins, siblings, in-laws, teachers, preachers, students, work colleagues, and friends. Some of them were “coarser” than others, being brave enough to take on the rougher side of me, though still going with the grain. It was not always pleasant for either of us, but coarser sandpaper usually accomplishes a smoother finish in shorter time.
I think everyone in life has at least one person who purposely seems intent on rubbing against the grain on the roughest side of his/her nature. I seem to have a few. Almost always this results in chafing, uncomfortable and unproductive for both the lumber [me] and the sandpaper [them]. Who are these people? Surprisingly, often they are also parents, cousins, siblings, in-laws, teachers, preachers, students, work colleagues, and friends. Does this make them hypocritical? Not always. Every person has both smooth and rough sides, and everyone is someone’s “sander” and others’ “sandpaper”.
Hopefully your life, as mine, is filled with more “sanders” than “sandpaper”. Everyone needs encouragement, for, as an email I once received noted, even “Pearls dissolve in vinegar”. May God forgive me those times that I was “vinegar” or “sandpaper”.
Do you know which is the only planet that rotates clockwise? Join me next week for a discussion that “revolves” around that idea. Until then, I share with you a few email thoughts that have been shared with me.

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
--Samuel Johnson

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere,
makes your heart race, and changes you forever.
We call those people cops.