Yesterday I heard part of the Tavis Smiley show on National Public Radio. In the segment that I heard Tavis was interviewing a man who encouraged families to take their children into the wilderness in order to help teach the children the importance of wilderness in all of our lives. Part of his reasoning was that when children grow up knowing the value of wilderness we will be less inclined to agree to the removal of the natural resources, especially energy reserves, stored in the few remaining wilderness areas so that the those wilderness areas can be preserved in their natural state for the generations to come.
Tavis asked the man he was interviewing how poor families from the inner city could achieve that goal of having their children experience wilderness life.
I have an answer for Tavis. To my mind it fits with Tavis’ ongoing encouragement of each of us to live up to our potential. We can each do it if we put our minds to it and commit to it.
This is a family story that I been told by Dad about his life as a child, living in Duluth MN.
My paternal grandmother, Mary Richardson Marshall, was a petite woman no taller than 5’ 2”. She and her husband, always referred to as The Duke, lived in Duluth MN in the early 1900s where The Duke worked for the Northern Pacific Railway Company. For railroad workers at that time vacations were not included as part of their employment.
The Duluth Marshalls did not own a car and generally had no need of one. Here is the tale of how each summer Grandma Marshall took the family children, and sometimes their friends, on vacation.
After preparing for the vacation Grandma Marshall would hire a taxi to pick them up at their home. The canoe would be loaded on top of the cab and all of the stuff they needed for a week’s vacation was stuffed inside along with the kids and Grandma. The taxi would deliver them to the train station. Grandma loaded the kids and their stuff on the passenger train, canoe included. An hour or so outside of Duluth the train stopped and the entourage’ was unloaded from the train.
The canoe was filled with all their gear. Then everyone pitched in to carry the canoe about one mile down a path to the lake. Grandma Marshall and the tribe of kids camped at the lake for a week. They caught fish for dinner. They swam, played, and camped out.
At the end of the week they reversed the process. They carried the loaded canoe back to the train stop where they flagged down the passenger train. Everything was loaded on the train, and then transferred to a taxicab for the ride home.
My father said that Grandma Marshall organized this vacation every summer for several years.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
A customer's reply to ordering a calendar in the month of May
I will share with you that I spilled a bowl of chili (yes, chili!) on my 2012 calendar yesterday and was glad that you had one in stock.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Starfish, Earth Day, and us
A good sermon is one that I remember beyond Sunday, or even beyond the parking lot at church.
Last Sunday The Rev. Fletcher Davis gave a memorable Earth Day sermon, tied to the Gospel lesson. Here is the image from the sermon that has stuck with me.
On a saltwater beach after a large storm a caring individual saw many starfish that had been tossed by the storm high up the beach. They had attached themselves to the seawall way above their normal habitat. They would not survive way up there. A thoughtful beach walker began peeling one starfish after another off of the seawall and with a strong thrust throwing them back into the water where they would have a much better chance of surviving.
A person walking down the beach saw the tossing of the starfish, stopped and asked, “What are you doing? You know that you cannot save them all. There are too many of them.”
The individual replied, “That may be true, but I …. Can …. save…THIS…One” as the starfish was, with effort, hurled back into the sea.
The moral that sticks with me is that I may not be able to effect much change in our world, but I can do something.
Last Sunday The Rev. Fletcher Davis gave a memorable Earth Day sermon, tied to the Gospel lesson. Here is the image from the sermon that has stuck with me.
On a saltwater beach after a large storm a caring individual saw many starfish that had been tossed by the storm high up the beach. They had attached themselves to the seawall way above their normal habitat. They would not survive way up there. A thoughtful beach walker began peeling one starfish after another off of the seawall and with a strong thrust throwing them back into the water where they would have a much better chance of surviving.
A person walking down the beach saw the tossing of the starfish, stopped and asked, “What are you doing? You know that you cannot save them all. There are too many of them.”
The individual replied, “That may be true, but I …. Can …. save…THIS…One” as the starfish was, with effort, hurled back into the sea.
The moral that sticks with me is that I may not be able to effect much change in our world, but I can do something.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Balancing a dichotomy in military life
We received an order for Prayer Book for the Armed Services for a chapel at a military base in the U.S. today. We are glad to help supply our service men and women with books for their spiritual needs.
Perhaps it is “of course” a chapel at an army base would include as part of the signature, “Faith and Firepower.” It sticks with me the dichotomy of trying to hold both parts of a serviceperson’s life together that is reflected in that closing statement. The Army is rightfully about firepower. The individual humans in the Army also have a spiritual side that can be described as faith.
How do they hold those two parts of their in balance?
Perhaps it is “of course” a chapel at an army base would include as part of the signature, “Faith and Firepower.” It sticks with me the dichotomy of trying to hold both parts of a serviceperson’s life together that is reflected in that closing statement. The Army is rightfully about firepower. The individual humans in the Army also have a spiritual side that can be described as faith.
How do they hold those two parts of their in balance?
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
A heresy that I am willing to embrace.
Listening to a couple of sermons recently, and reading a thoughtful article in The Christian Century, I see a heresy that I am ready to embrace. I don’t want to recite the Nicene Creed each week in worship. I want to recite the Beatitudes in place of the Creed.
It seems to me that Jesus the Christ was living and preaching the Beatitudes and not the Creed. The Creed comes from, in my humble opinion, the hierarchy of the Church and not from the life that Jesus demonstrated in his words and actions.
This is simply my heresy this week. Thank Goodness I am not ordained!
It seems to me that Jesus the Christ was living and preaching the Beatitudes and not the Creed. The Creed comes from, in my humble opinion, the hierarchy of the Church and not from the life that Jesus demonstrated in his words and actions.
This is simply my heresy this week. Thank Goodness I am not ordained!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
An interesting challenge
We have had an interesting challenge with our store. Should we, how do we, change banks?
For as long as we have owned the store we have been banking with one of the giant national banks. There have been many advantages to banking with them. Well established, they offer every business service we need. They are experienced at working with businesses both larger and smaller than we are. All of their products that we use are reliable. For instance, we can contact them any time, day or night, holiday or weekend, and they will be there because they are so huge that they never close.
They are also in many ways not like us at all. They do not conduct business with the same heart and mind as we do. They were part of the national mortgage scandal, their top executives are paid immoral amounts of money, they adjust all their services so that they always make money. When congress enacted new regulations that eliminated some fees and assured that others fees would be openly displayed this bank created other fees and hid them. Since last October several changes have been made without informing us. Our credit card transactions are more difficult and more costly now, and those changes were made without informing us.
There is a somewhat young, local bank that has shown us that they are trying to manage their business with a philosophy that fits ours. They offer significant personal care for each individual customer while still using sound business practices, and they are well capitalized and financially strong.
But, they are “small potatoes.” Can they be reliable? Can we trust the financial side of this ministry-which-is-the-store to them? Our financial future will be dependent upon working securely and efficiently with them.
Nancy and I have taken this decision path slowly and deliberately. We have verified with other businesses that this local bank does work the way that they claim. We have studied their business proposal with us and it looks sound, reasonable, and fiscally responsible.
One insight that we have learned in this time of discernment is that we do not need to move everything to the new bank at one time. We can wade into the water slowly and carefully. We can open an account and move part of our business to the new bank while retaining the old bank’s services. As we become comfortable with each part that we move to the new bank we can then move another piece to them. If we find some difficulties we can then move those parts of the business back to the behemoth bank with little loss, other than our efforts and time involved in the transitioning.
One of the joys that I experience in owning our own business is the challenge of making big decisions such as this. We have the freedom to change banks. We know that freedom involves responsibility to learn about and work with the dangers and rewards that come with the decision. As an entrepreneur there is the thrill of making the decisions and living with the consequences that do not exist when you are an employee of a boss, an institution, or a corporation.
We continue to strive to meet two goals: to treat our customers the way that we would like to be treated (“do unto others as you would want done to you”), and to keep the business of the store financially sound so that it will continue in the future. Perhaps this change in banking will help us to continue with our theology and business philosophy.
For as long as we have owned the store we have been banking with one of the giant national banks. There have been many advantages to banking with them. Well established, they offer every business service we need. They are experienced at working with businesses both larger and smaller than we are. All of their products that we use are reliable. For instance, we can contact them any time, day or night, holiday or weekend, and they will be there because they are so huge that they never close.
They are also in many ways not like us at all. They do not conduct business with the same heart and mind as we do. They were part of the national mortgage scandal, their top executives are paid immoral amounts of money, they adjust all their services so that they always make money. When congress enacted new regulations that eliminated some fees and assured that others fees would be openly displayed this bank created other fees and hid them. Since last October several changes have been made without informing us. Our credit card transactions are more difficult and more costly now, and those changes were made without informing us.
There is a somewhat young, local bank that has shown us that they are trying to manage their business with a philosophy that fits ours. They offer significant personal care for each individual customer while still using sound business practices, and they are well capitalized and financially strong.
But, they are “small potatoes.” Can they be reliable? Can we trust the financial side of this ministry-which-is-the-store to them? Our financial future will be dependent upon working securely and efficiently with them.
Nancy and I have taken this decision path slowly and deliberately. We have verified with other businesses that this local bank does work the way that they claim. We have studied their business proposal with us and it looks sound, reasonable, and fiscally responsible.
One insight that we have learned in this time of discernment is that we do not need to move everything to the new bank at one time. We can wade into the water slowly and carefully. We can open an account and move part of our business to the new bank while retaining the old bank’s services. As we become comfortable with each part that we move to the new bank we can then move another piece to them. If we find some difficulties we can then move those parts of the business back to the behemoth bank with little loss, other than our efforts and time involved in the transitioning.
One of the joys that I experience in owning our own business is the challenge of making big decisions such as this. We have the freedom to change banks. We know that freedom involves responsibility to learn about and work with the dangers and rewards that come with the decision. As an entrepreneur there is the thrill of making the decisions and living with the consequences that do not exist when you are an employee of a boss, an institution, or a corporation.
We continue to strive to meet two goals: to treat our customers the way that we would like to be treated (“do unto others as you would want done to you”), and to keep the business of the store financially sound so that it will continue in the future. Perhaps this change in banking will help us to continue with our theology and business philosophy.
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