When (self-examination, meditation, and
prayer) are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable
foundation for life. The “Twelve and Twelve”
The other day I was merrily waltzing along the walks of
downtown Ennis when I espied a shiny object on the ground. As is my custom, I
bent down to get a better look, discerned it was a penny, and picked it up.
I have been told there are people who will not stoop so low
as to pick up such a small sum of change, but I am not one of them. I believe
pennies are more valuable than we realize. For one thing, without them, life in
America would make no cents!
For another – and this is very personal and could be TMI for
a family publication – but one of my earliest memories is that of being a
toddler – probably two or three years of age – and finding a penny on the floor
at home.
How do I remember such a small incident as that? Well, as
poor as my memory often is, I recall finding the coin, picking it up with my
chubby little mitts, and then gnawing on it as kids often do.
When my mother noticed how unusually quiet life was around
the house, she came to investigate and noticed I was obviously enjoying chewing
on something she hadn’t given me, but before she could pry open my yap, I
swallowed that little Lincoln headed morsel.
I figure it must have been quite valuable, for over the next
few days mother checked to see if I had processed the coin. In hindsight (you
can take that any way you wish), I suspect she was concerned that it might have
gotten lodged somewhere in my plumbing, so it was probably my health she was
concerned about more than the coin.
To my knowledge it never passed, which may explain why later
in life I chose to become a copper, but that’s another story.
Taking in money at such an early age, it is no wonder that I
eventually became an ATM. I had school-aged children and hardly a day went by
where they didn’t have to make a withdrawal for lunch, field trips,
fund-raisers, and the like.
While I may have groused, whined, and complained, I really didn’t
mind. It was always a pleasure to see them smile and hear what sounded like
heart-felt thanks as they ran screaming and cheering their way out the door to
catch the school-bus with their neighborhood pals.
Getting back to my tale, the point is, I cannot pass up a
coin that’s lying about without picking it up. It isn’t that it will really do
me much good (beyond the exertion required to bend down and rise again – a
metaphor for resurrection if there ever was one), but I just can’t leave it
lay, lie, or stay there.
A coin in the gutter has no value. A coin in a fountain
brings luck and love – we all know that – but a bit of copper or silver lying
underfoot is useless.
That’s why I can’t leave them in the street or on the
sidewalk. I don’t pick them up in order to keep them, but to return them to
circulation – to allow them to fulfill their destiny.
If that is true of coins, how much more so is it true of one
another? There are some people you talk to and they make your feel like a
million bucks. They pick you up. There are others who make you feel like the
stuff my mother sifted through to find that lost treasure so long ago. I don’t
know that I am often successful, but I know I would rather be the first type.
With my kids, I never felt like they took advantage; they
only asked for what they needed. If I had a complaint, I thought they sometimes
asked too little of me (but I kept that concern to myself); when I was able to,
I would try to give them extra, “just in case,” and if they didn’t need the
extra, I’d let them keep it, “just because.”
