Minutes to Memories

Okay, boys and girls, I have an exercise for you guaranteed to sap the joy right out of your holiday season, followed by another exercise guaranteed to put the joy right back in.

"Why would I do such a silly thing" you ask? Well, it's admittedly not the best marketing sentence ever constructed, but I'll propose that the two exercises might very well be required coursework for those foolhardy people interested in following Jesus.

EXERCISE #1:
* Write down all the money you spend on people for Christmas this year (Joy gone already, huh? But we're not done yet...).
* Next to each person's name, label him or her as either fortunate or less-fortunate (fortunate being folks with food, clothing, shelter, health, parents, etc.).
* Get an elementary student to help you do the math & determine the percentage of money you spent on fortunate people versus the money you spent on the less-fortunate.

There you have it! Joy guaranteed to disappear before your very eyes!

EXERCISE #2:
* Take a gander at the picture above (My friends, Hollie and Stella, prepared this little gift basket photographed in my passenger seat. Contents: looks like fruit, candy, and a handmade note from a child.)
* Use the gift basket above as inspiration and develop something similar of your own.
* Take it to a nursing home (as Hollie asked me to do) or someplace similar where you will find LESS-fortunate people, and deliver it to someone there.

Okay, performing exercise #2 does not negate the huge discrepancy revealed by exercise #1, but it is a start. Planting a seed, if you will.

And maybe someday we'll find ourselves entering the holiday season focusing entirely on the latter, and in so doing, making the math problem look a whole lot more like the math of Jesus.