A Thousand and Three Boxes of Girlscout Cookies

While driving down Main Street today I saw two girls standing in the cold and snow flurries dressed up as cookies. One was a Thin Mint and the other was a Samoa. I am a sucker for this scene. Not because I cannot live without the cookies. But because I appreciate the work of the Girl Scouts, like to support their work, and contribute to their entrepreneurial education. The look of satisfaction on the face of a Girl Scout when she makes a sale is worth the $4 price of the cookies. So today I drove around the block, stopped, chatted with the Girl Scouts, and bought 4 boxes. 

I have a soft spot for the Girl Scouts because of my experience with my daughter when she was a Girl Scout. She was the cookie seller and I was her sales manager. Honestly, I think I enjoyed the experience more than she did. I like selling things and I was determined I was going to make a salesperson out of her. I also had a rule that I was not going to sale them for her but that she had to make the contacts and take the orders. So on the first day of cookie sales we would hit the streets together and with my encouragement she would ring the door bell and when people came to the door she would ask “would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies”?  Some would buy and she would be happy. Some would say no and sometimes she would get multiple “no’s” in a row and would get a little discouraged. I tried to help her understand that often in life the answer was no and that a negative answer just gives you the opportunity to move on to the next door. We learned to take orders in places of business and that the orders were often larger there. She took her order sheet to church and found lots of friendly buyers there. We learned that repeat business was best and having secured phone numbers from the previous year’s sales sheet she was able to take a lot of orders by phone. Over the years she took special interest in some of her customers. Like the widower who lived a few blocks from us, had a house full of cats and always had to show her the weaving work he was doing with rugs. He would buy several boxes but the sale was never quick. You had to give him 15-20 minutes of your life. But he needed that and we were enriched by the experience. We thought she had sold a lot of cookies one year when she sold 737 boxes. But the next year she sold 1003 boxes. To put this in perspective, if you take the back two rows of seats out of a mini-van and fill it with 1003 boxes of cookies you have just enough room for the driver and the Girl Scout. Of course then you have to deliver all those cookies and collect the money. But when it was over she had helped her troop earn some money and she earned for herself some “cookie dough” to pay a large part of her way to summer Girl Scout Camp. Perhaps my daughter would say I was a tough sales manager. But for me it was a treasured experience that I got to share with her. And if I see Girl Scouts selling cookies I am going to buy some.

 

Souvenir Christianity

Last Sunday I shared about our Lord’s Supper service in which we used olive wood cups to serve the juice. I relayed how that after a two and one-half hour time lapse between filling the cups and partaking of the Lord’s Supper that some of the cups had completely absorbed the juice and that the juice having taken on the taste of the olive wood tasted bitter. Each participant took the used cup home with them as a souvenir. When the cups dried however we noticed that the juice had left a crimson stain. No amount of rinsing could wash it away. I noted that these facts reminded me of how we are supposed to absorb Christ and how having absorbed him our lives are changed. If Christ does absorb us we will be stained and that stain is His identifying mark upon us. I noted that the bitter taste of the juice reminded me of the bitter cross Christ had to bear. As followers of Christ we also are sometimes called upon to be involved in bitter work. My friend Pat Pajak told me afterwards that I should have used white grape juice and waited to fill the cups about 30 minutes before the Lord’s Supper service. That way less juice would be absorbed by the cup, it would not take on as much taste from the wood, and the cup would not be stained. That sounds like good logistical thinking. It would be less messy and the people could go home with a less blemished souvenir.  

On the other hand maybe we have just identified a problem of the Christian faith. We engage in to much souvenir Christianity. We have no desire to absorb very much of Christ. We come to worship looking for a small and quick dose of Christ and if we discover we got a little to much we can rinse it off. It does not change us much. Therefore it does not prepare us to taste the bitter cup of suffering nor does it compel us to drink the often bitter cup of service. It is a stainless faith. I guess that kind of faith makes a good souvenir. But it does not identify us and it does not make much difference in the world.

A Memorable Lord's Supper

We celebrated the Lord’s Supper last Sunday morning. We served the juice in cups made of olive wood that had been made in Bethlehem. I had bought the cups on my recent trip to Israel with the intent that after using them each partaker could take the cup home with them as a souvenir. It was a different experience with observations worthy of notice. We had filled the cups before the Sunday School hour. By the time we served the cup at the end of the worship time two and one-half hours had lapsed. When I stepped down from the platform to serve the Lord’s Supper I noticed that the olive wood cups had absorbed some of the juice. In fact a few of the cups had completely absorbed all the juice that had been poured into them. It occurred to me that as God’s chosen vessels we are to absorb Christ becoming more and more like Him each day. When we drank from the cup it tasted bitter. The fruit of the vine had taken on the flavor of olive wood. It reminded me of the bitter cup Christ had to drink in bearing our sin on the cross. From a different angle I thought of how the presence of Christ changes the flavor of our lives and how His love and mercy and grace and peace can change the flavor of the world. I thought of how Christ drank a bitter cup in order that the world might taste a sweeter cup. The folks took the now empty and juice saturated cups home with them. I took mine as well and sat it on my desk to dry. When it had dried it was left with a reddish stain. The stain reminds me of Christ’s mark upon our lives. For when we truly absorb Christ we are not the same. We have been changed. We are different. His mark is upon us. That mark is left to remind us of who we are. It is left to cause those whom we encounter to inquire about who we are.

What Should I Do With These Stones?

When I was in Israel I saw a lot of houses made with stone. Timber was scarce in Israel but stones were plentiful. I marveled at the stone structures of antiquity. It required skilled engineering and craftsmanship and an enormous amount of labor to build the theaters and arches and walls and roadways that are still with us today. They managed to turn rocks into an asset and did so without benefit of modern technology. I was amazed at the walls and buildings of Old Jerusalem. How did they get two and a half-ton rocks in place in order to build a high and mighty wall? I saw a rock in the rabbinical tunnel that was part of the retaining wall of the old temple area. It would have been at street level in the day of Jesus. That means I was looking at the same rock Jesus would have seen. It is calculated that it weighs 580 tons. How did they get it there in one piece? I do not know. But the ancients were really good at turning the common materials available into a valuable asset. But when you cut and craft stone there is going to be some waste. That means that somewhere there were piles of sharp, rough, jagged rocks lying around. They were not big enough to be useful but they were big enough to be dangerous. Maybe that is why one of the preferred methods of mob violence was stoning. We read that the Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. It occurs to me that rocks when coupled with intelligence, desire, planning, skill, and hard work can be turned into walls and roads and buildings. But when anger and misunderstanding prevails rocks can be turned into weapons of destruction. We can pick up rocks to build or we can pick up rocks to kill. Makes me wonder what I am doing with the rocks that are strewn along the paths I walk.

At Galilee

I walked one day where Jesus trod
In a village along the shore
I stood upon a sloping hill
Where he preached to five thousand or more

I ventured out onto the sea
Where Peter and John plied their trade
With mine own eyes I saw the place
Where Jesus taught and disciples made

I viewed the hills panoramic
Stoic, stately, still, and compact
From this backdrop He gave meaning
To faith, hope, and love so abstract

I recalled Peter and the others

When a fierce wind they had to face
Then came Jesus on the water
Reaching His hand of saving grace

I thought of how much in common,

Though it has been two thousand years
We have with those who lived in that day
How Jesus still can calm our fears

Jesus did not consider great
Those who held power in their hand
But had respect and compassion
For the weary who worked the land

I was there with many travelers

In their tears I discovered a clue
In each was a burdensome story
They had only told to a few
 

As I looked upon the marvel

I sensed a word to my hungry soul
Take my yoke upon your shoulders
Together we will reach the goal.

Somewhere Near Here

While traveling in Israel I wrote a poem and shared the poem with our group at our last devotional time in the Jerusalem.

In old Jerusalem near cross and sepulcher

Transgressors and confessors searching for a cure
Weary Pilgrims assembled in this place ornate
Guilty, broken, sad, sickened, from life’s heavy weight

Here we remember how our sin once did molest

How selfish deeds and hateful thoughts God does detest
Yet for us sinners Christ in love performed His grace
His sacrificial work makes this a holy place

Somewhere near here religion organized deceit

They drug him to the pavement to make his end complete
Somewhere near here truth was twisted, justice denied
Somewhere near here, misinformed, crucified they cried

Somewhere near here with cruel whip his back was beat

Somewhere near here Rome drove nails in Christ’ hands and feet
Somewhere near here the savior wore thorns for a crown
Somewhere near here the savior’s blood trickled down

Somewhere near here they punctured a sword in his side

Somewhere near here for our sin our blessed savior died
Somewhere near here, hanging shamefully on a cross
Jesus was sacrificed to restore human loss

Here listening to vile words the crowd did sputter

An announcement of forgiveness he did utter
Here on these grounds the lamb without blemish or flaw
Orchestrated the salvation the Father foresaw

The execution done His body was removed

The task was now completed, the Father approved
In a tomb near here his slaughtered corpse was encased
Still, dead, and buried, His accomplishments erased

For three days in the dark of the earth he did lay

While the Sabbath left His friends to mourn in dismay
But on the third day, somewhere near here, before dawn
There came a rumble and He awoke without yawn
 

Somewhere near here before the daylights detection

Breath was restored in mighty resurrection
The women and the disciples saw him near here
Then to more than five-hundred he dared to appear
 

I’m quite impressed with these walls and decorations

But they provoke neither joy nor celebration
For I’m on a journey to see the saviors face
And perhaps that’s the lesson of this wondrous place

For nails, nor cross, rocks, or cave can keep Jesus still

Resurrected our savior moves around at will
He will not be confined to places around here
But where ever we go our living Lord is near.

 

A Jar of Pennies

It was cold outside. Nevertheless I stopped long enough to stoop down and pick up a penny from the pavement. A penny is not worth much but I hate to walk by and leave money on the ground. I took it home and put it in my gallon jug of coins. It was just a penny. But it was a penny. Then I got curious to know how long it would take a penny to compound into some real money. I plugged these figures into a compound interest calculator: .01$ for 70 years at 10.83%. I chose 70 years, three score and ten, the number of “good years” that most of us can expect to live on this earth. I chose $10.83% because that was the annualized rate of return on the Dow Jones Industrial for the 32 year period between 1975 and 2007. That is a healthy rate of return, perhaps a little ambitious for a 70 year average, but not as optimistic as Warren Buffet might be. After inserting those figures I clicked “calculate” and discovered that a penny invested and compounded quarterly at 10.83% for 70 years would grow to $17.73. That is enough to take my wife out to eat at her favorite pizza restaurant. But of course she expects to go there more than once every 70 years.

But then I thought “what if I had a gallon jug of pennies”? I wondered how many pennies that would be. So I googled it and discovered that a gallon jar would hold around 50,000 pennies - $50 worth. Using the same figures of 10.83% compounded quarterly for 70 years I again clicked calculate. The results were a little more encouraging. My hypothetical jar of pennies invested for 70 years would grow to $88, 628.68. I think I will continue picking up pennies.

It occurs to me that life is somewhat like a jar of pennies. Maybe we even think of ourselves as being as common as a copper penny. Even if that were true, which it surely is not, we should be able to see that we have value.  And if that value is properly harnessed we can do wonderful things. There are two things that every person has in common in life. We all have time and we all have opportunity. We do not all have the same amount of time. We do not all have the same amount of opportunity. But we all have some measure of each. My life may only be a jar of pennies. But it is a jar of pennies. If we will learn to make the most of our time and take advantage of our opportunities life will compound into something beneficial.