----------------------------
The Pink
Room: Thoughts About Intentional Living
Chapter 16/
Generosity.
Part 1
(Previous post contain the previous chapters.)
-------------------------
After the Cookie Well project, it was my turn to pick. I
decided I’d feed AIDS orphans that some old coworkers worked with in Africa. I
spent a season of craft booths selling greeting cards and crafts and one of
them was Chivefest in Howard, WI. They put on a craft fair/art fair to raise
money for an organization that made bread for food pantries.
My cousin Abby and I packed up the car early in the day and
drove over there. Unpacked the car and realized our display booth just happened
to back up to the luxury commode trailer that was sponsored by what would
become my employer several years later. Little did I know it was foreshadowing.
Slaving away, toilet jokes, and random flushing…that would be my future.
The benefit was that we had a lot of traffic.
My first real job out of college—we’d have interns
periodically and I met Bek. She would write me poems when she was moved by
overwhelming love. I would come to my cubicle and the dry erase board, for the
entire office, would be crammed with verses about how loving or wonderful I
was. She was a highlight of my time there. We are still in touch.
“There once was a girl from Green Bay.
Shoot, I don’t know what else to say.
She loves me, I’m sure.
For I am her cure
To a boring a humdrum day.
Sherri my Sherri
My Sherri Bo Berry
My delightful, insightful
And marvelous deary,
Flash your smile and don’t take a while
Or the day will fly by
With my sad little sigh. :(”
Or this one:
“She is my Sherbear
I cannot keep it quiet.
Without her it is painful
It’s hopeless to hide it.
Whether it’s brownies or cookies or
A simple hello,
She makes my day
Enjoyable I know!
Whatever will I do when at college I wake and head
To my classes, hungry and faint?
My Shearbear won’t be there to give me a feast,
She won’t even be there for me to greet.
This makes me sad, however I’m glad,
The right here with my Shearbear is so near! :)”
Since that time, when someone is wonderful I also will write
a poem, normally silly and whatever pops into my head on the fly—not normally
“good” but it is the thought that counts, right?!
After Chivefest, Abby received this poem:
Ode to one
fabulous cousin:
oh Abby
you are amazing.
Sewing
cards while the sun is blazing.
Sweating
bullets near the luxury commode
and
trucking too much crap to my abode.
It was a
bit crazy and awfully swell,
you might
get to know me a bit too well.
But it is
more fun hangin' with you—
than a guy
in a kilt or just the loo.
Thanks for
the planning,
the
crackers and cheese,
the Diet Coke
and a bit more ease.
Yes there
was a guy in a kilt. And we both, at the time, had a Diet Coke addiction.
That
season of giving and stretching ourselves to see things happen changed us all.
We realized we could do things, that seems obvious but often we talk ourselves
out of these things. The well was $5000 and we raised it. We also learned that
sometimes the things we do were more work if we were not praying for the right
work to do or the way God would have us do it. It seems strange to pray before
for the right people and places and things to fall in your path, like God would
know, however it helps.
We learned
that it is more fun to do these projects, to do life, to imagine with friends
and others around. It makes the lifting lighter and the journey more exciting.
-------------------------
I think God is proud when we are selfless, when we are
generous. God asks us to test him in our tithing and giving, the one area where
it is good to test God. I’m not sure that any lives, stateside were transformed
but we know one community in Africa has a well in their village and in another
AIDS orphans were fed for a month.
What I do know is those
projects included thousands of conversations about water and wells and AIDS
orphans—and thousands of people were required to think about generosity for a
moment.
