Waste Not Wrought Naught?

It was a banner day last week on the walk. My early morning walk with my dog and husband is one of the rituals we keep. We sometimes talk, sometimes not. Sometimes discuss the upcoming day or work through dreams from sleep. Once in a while we salvage the left-behind towel or ball in the park. Last week I found twenty-cents.

I don’t recall when this ritual began. I pick up money. Pennies, nickels, dimes, the occasional quarter; and this year a $5 bill! In the overall picture of life, my collection doesn’t amount to much, but I keep it over the course of the year and donate what I’ve found plus a percentage to charity. It’s my personal barometer of the economy. I call it my God money.

An old joke tells the tale of a couple of guys lamenting about giving to the church. The punch line is, “Well, I throw my money up in the air and what God wants, He keeps.” From that joke I decided the money I found on the ground was money God must have dropped, so I collect it for Him and give it back plus interest. No heroics here; just my way.

Most years I collect around $ 4-5 dollars. It’s been rather slim pickings with the take coming in around $3 the last couple of years. I figured it’s the economy. But this year, a year of foreclosures and 10%-plus unemployment, I’ve collected $7.17 so far and the year’s not over. Either the economy isn’t so bad or we are a very frazzled people.

Today we picked up a soccer ball. That makes three for the year. Theodore, our dog, proudly stretched his jaw as far as he could muster in order to carry his latest prize home with him. Tugging at Theodore’s collar to hold him in a walk, this article floated back to my conscious thought. I had abandoned it. Dropped like the soccer ball clutched so tightly in my dogs teeth as we rounded the last corner to our house, the article I’d begun didn’t seem to be important any longer. The ball, the money, the article: Is it “waste not “ or “wrought naught”?

Before you start baking, buying, building light-filled trees and bustling about this year, stop and not only be thankful next Thursday, stop and breathe. Breathe in a whole second. Bend your mind around idleness; not loaf-some, frittered away time. Stop and just be. Be a part of the moment of the world you live in with perspective.

I almost laugh at myself as I type this. Yes, my idle life of packing to move to Baton Rouge, finalizing a sale on a house, preparing for 14 guests in my home over Thanksgiving, and creating and updating web pages. Ha! No wonder $7.17 was found on the ground over the course of this year. Me, you, us… we are all just running, running, running like the little mouse on the treadmill to the beat of our crammed up lives. Running from thought to task to where the coins and balls of our lives are dropped for lack of the thought of a true second to stop and collect them.

Let’s make a pack together. I will promise to stop at least for 5 minutes every day through the end of this year to just breathe, thank God for my life and family, and love the time I have on this earth. Not worry about whether I answered that email, caught the latest post on Facebook, beat the stop light before it changed to red and all the other stuff that jumble up our days. Just breathe and be.

Peace.