My friend Farlough was preaching to me the other day.

Not from behind a pulpit.

Those days are mostly behind him now.

These days, Farlough is part of a two-man concrete crew working as a subcontractor on one of our apartment renovation projects. They’re replacing broken sidewalks and curbs one section at a time.

It’s hard work.

Ninety-plus-degree Louisiana heat. Concrete, shovels, wheelbarrows, and sweat.
Farlough is somewhere in his sixties. A former preacher. Salt of the earth. Blue collar. Rugged.

The kind of man who’s still swinging a hammer because that’s who he is.

He always seems content just to be here.

Not the kind of contentment that has you jumping up and clicking your heels.

Just a quiet contentment.

Let’s get it done.

Watching him work reminds me of my dad, Elder Joe, and my Uncle Obie priming tobacco under the hot North Carolina sun every August. They were trying to earn a little extra money to help provide for their families. It wasn’t glamorous work. It was simply part of making a living, and they did it without much complaining.

Farlough is cut from that same cloth.

His greeting is never just, “Hey.”

It’s always, “How are you today?”

And if you answer with one of those automatic, “Doing fine,” while you’re still walking, don’t think you’ve satisfied him.

He’ll ask again.

“No… how are you today?”

He wants the real answer.

The other day, somewhere between talking about concrete work and life in general, we found ourselves talking about how the world seems more divided than it used to.

People will disappoint you.

They’ll do you wrong.

Sometimes they’ll make you wonder what happened to common decency.

Farlough listened for a while, then looked at me and said, “I’ve never found a man that gave me more problems than my own self.”

Then he went right back to finishing concrete.

I stood there for a minute thinking about what he’d just said.

But Farlough wasn’t interested in spending much time talking about everybody else’s faults.

Instead he said, “You just need to keep hold of a looking glass.”

Looking glass.

I smiled when he said it.

I hadn’t heard those words in years. They sounded exactly like something my grandfather, Papa Lee, would have said. Hearing that old expression carried me right back to Sandy Ridge.

A looking glass.

Not a mirror.

A looking glass.

There’s something about those old words that makes you slow down and think a little differently.

Maybe that’s because a looking glass helps you make sure everything is in place before you walk out the door. Maybe it ought to remind us to do the same on the inside.

The longer I live, the more I think Farlough has a point.

There have always been difficult people.

There always will be.

Some of my biggest regrets didn’t come because somebody else did me wrong. They came because I didn’t listen to that quiet inner voice trying to steer me in the right direction. Most of the time, I already knew what the right thing was.

It’s a whole lot easier to point a finger than it is to pick up a looking glass.

Maybe that’s why Farlough’s words have stayed with me.

The world may never quit giving us reasons to complain.

Turns out, the fellow in the looking glass has always been enough to keep me busy.

As Best As I Remember It.