Our Invisible Servants

     Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! As befits one who has “green blood,” here at the Fortress it’s a day of celebration. Bet you didn’t know that Patrick was born in Scotland, kidnapped by Irish raiders, and sold as a slave to a Druid priest. Or that missionaries he ordained were deemed responsible for converting much of Europe to Christianity. But that’s why Patrick is considered high in the Church’s hagiography.

     However, I’m not here to rhapsodize about ol’ Paddy. I’ve been thinking about what most of us take for granted nearly all the time. We hardly ever see it. We almost never think about it. Yet it makes our lives possible and pleasant… until it doesn’t.

     On Sunday evening, the Fortress suffered a “backup.” Water that was intended to run down the kitchen sink drain and thence to the cesspool came back up through the shower drain instead. Very unpleasant. But one doesn’t call a plumber on Sunday, especially after 6:00 PM.

     Monday dawned bright and early. Thank God, Roto-Rooter of Long Island was answering its phone. By 9:00 AM, a tech was here to deal with the problem – and what a problem it was! A significant segment of outfall pipe had clogged so completely that water could no longer pass through it. To compound the damage, that pipe – originally installed in 1959 when the house was built – was close to rotting through. The tech had to take down a piece of wall, cut into the pipe, remove and replace it. He managed it, and before 11 AM, at that. Moreover, he put the wall back up and cleaned up after himself. I wanted to applaud.

     No, it wasn’t cheap. $1500! But that’s the sort of thing one faces when plumbing from 1959 goes bad.

     But it got me thinking about our invisible servants. Plumbing is certainly one such. When it’s working more or less to specification, there’s no reason to think about it. When it fails, as ours did Sunday evening, we start to froth at the mouth. We don’t thank the failed parts for their service as they’re hauled away. Then there’s the cost, about which let no more be said here.

     Plumbing. Heating systems. Floor joists. The foundation itself. The roof overhead. All doing what they were designed to do, continuously, whether or not we take notice. Until they don’t, of course. Then the swearing begins.

     I steeled myself and said a prayer of gratitude. I gave thanks for them all, and promised that I would henceforth try not to take them for granted. I also gave thanks that I could afford the repairs. And I think I’ll be doing more of that in the future.

     God didn’t provide those things to us directly, of course. Rather, He equipped generations of men with the imagination to conceive of them, the skills to design them, the power to fabricate and install them, and – insert extra thanks here – the talent required to diagnose and repair them when they fail. Those men are the “proximate causes” for our invisible servants and why they serve us so faithfully for such long stretches of time. They too deserve our gratitude, even if we have no idea of their names, faces, or the lives they led.

     Other men with talents other than ours are gifts to us. The division-of-labor economy that makes their specialties viable is a gift, as well. The free market economy that smoothly provides them in the necessary quantities is beneath it all, of course… and let’s give special thanks that the Big Parasite (you know what I’m talking about), for all its attempts, hasn’t yet managed to destroy that completely.

     No, it’s not cheap. Neither the products nor the services come to us for free. But let’s also give thanks that, with a few pitiable exceptions, we can afford both to purchase them and to service them when they fail us. That, too, is a gift, for who among us, were he transported to North Korea, Cambodia, Burma, or Laos, would be able to maintain an American standard of living and all the servants that go with it?

     Enough of that for now. My cesspool service has just arrived. I must brace myself for his exactions. If the week continues in this vein, I expect to be bankrupt by this coming Sunday. Pray for me. When you’re finished giving thanks for your plumbing et cetera, that is.