Erin

Okay. I can write on this blog again. The Busy Season had other activities for me, but now life in this ministry-which-is-the-store has calmed down.


Erin is an interesting and dear customer. She is located on the other coast of the country and phones us with book orders. Over the past year, without prying into her personal life, we have deduced that she is bed-ridden in a residential facility. A few days ago I asked her if the cherry trees were blooming yet. She replied that although the curtain is open, “they have not raised the shade yet.” She could not tell me if the cherries were in bloom.

On a regular basis Erin orders books, some new, and many out of print that I can find for her as used books. After several orders I inquired about her source for finding the titles. Erin replied that her source for the titles is from the bibliographies of the books that she has received from us. (Bibliographies are a treasure of titles that the authors recommend.)

Each of us looks forward to each phone call from Erin. The book orders are good, but better are the  brief conversations with a delightful, thoughtful woman.

You know politics is having an effect when...

We have a wonderful bronze plaque in our store. It reads:

Bidden or not bidden God is present.

A customer earlier this week, while looking at that plaque exclaimed, "Biden?! What is Joe Biden doing on a plaque in your store?!"
We explained that Vice President Biden has a single "d" in his name and the word "bidden" has two of them. We continued, "'Bidden' means to ask and the plaque is saying that whether we ask for God or not, God is still present with us."
She replied, "Oh. Okay. Sure, I know that."

Bob B.

I attended the celebration of Bob’s life today. He was quite a fellow.

For over 30 years he was self-employed as a supplier of office paper supplies for businesses in the Seattle area. Even though he “had no truck with organized religion” Bob lived the life of Christian service to others and had a big impact of everyone he met.

His family told stories to the overflow crowd about parts of Bob’s life that most of us did not know. As I remarked to another person on our way in to the event, “All these people. And I thought that I was one of Bob’s few friends through his business.” She replied, “Yes, me too. He had that effect on everyone.”

We were told that Bob had very few possessions and a huge heart for helping others. Making money was not important to him. Helping others was of utmost importance to Bob. By providing office supplies, his specialty was all sorts of paper products, to businesses he found that he could help others. Bob would go way out of his way to find and bring to you whatever paper product you wanted.

Learning more about Bob’s life was very inspiring today. He positively impacted the lives all that he met.

Is the Holy Spirit at work here?

A customer writes the following:
Dear John,
I don't know why I asked you how soon you could ship Enriching Our Worship but maybe the Holy Ghost prompted. It arrived on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday I went on call as the night chaplain at St. Luke's Hospital in xxxxx. Was called to 3 deaths last night so the book got some use..
Just wanted you to know your extra trouble made a difference.
Bill

A peek at the world outside the Big Box stores

Our supply of bookmarks with our store’s logo on them recently ran out. The old-time printer, husband and wife, we have used for years has retired. It’s time to find a new printer for our book marks, and other things.

I contacted a local independent printing business. They promptly replied with a couple of choices in prices, one for digital printing and the other for offset printing, as well as a “proof” copy of the future book marks.

One should always have at least one more bid on a project for comparison.

I contacted the local branch of a national printing business corporation. They replied rather quickly with a single price and a proof. Their price was about 10% lower than the first business.

Nancy and I discussed the two price quotes. We decided to give our business to the local independent printer.

This afternoon the president of the local independent printer came in our store. He brought to us a still-warm, freshly baked peach pie. It was a “thank you” for our business with them and a result of their July promotion of their business (that we did not know about). The pie was made today, did I mention still warm(!), by a local independent pie shop in the same neighborhood as the printer.

We immediately stopped our work for an impromptu “pie break.” It was a wonderful pie!

I doubt that the national printing corporation would have matched that level of customer care and thanksgiving.

There is more to life, and business, than simply the lowest price. There are intangibles that are sometimes priceless.

So many Wednesdays

Hello to another Wednesday morning.

I’m impressed and amazed at the number of Wednesdays there have been in my life. The days and weeks flow by like a swollen river, unceasingly.

Do I treasure each Wednesday, each day? It may be easy to take them for granted as they roll by but each one is precious to me.

Do you know the effect of your church's website?

Here is part of a message from a customer in Belgium.

I already got my book this Friday, July 20 (7 days delivery time). It was even faster than the previous order, maybe because the package was smaller. Thanks a lot and I have to say I appreciate very much the personalized way you make contact with your customers. I wish everybody would do as you do.

You may be surprised top have a customer in Belgium who is not even a native speaker of English, but the story is this. I discovered the Episcopal church by chance (or by the Grace of God?) in 2004. I watched the funeral service of former president Ronald Reagan at Washington national Cathedral on television and I was impressed by the beauty of the cathedral and the solemnity of the service. I tried to re-watch it on the web and so I discovered the cathedral's website and from link to link I learned more about Episcopal liturgy and I began reciting the daily office first on the Internet, than with a BCP I orderd from the cathedral's webstore.

... We have an Episcopal congregation in Waterloo, Belgium but it is not really close to my home so I go on attending my local Roman Catholic parish church but I use the BCP for my personal prayer and this combined trans-denominational worship fits me well, since I've always believed we are all christians in our common faith and catholic, anglican, protestant or other depending much more from our historical background or the place we live in rather than from a personal choice.