COUNT YOUR PENNIES... COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
Perhaps you have never heard of the philosopher, Sylvester Neil, also known as the Penny Man. I hope you will think of him many times during the coming holidays. Sylvester just cashed in $8,000 worth of pennies at a bank near Seattle.
He started saving all his coins at the age of 18. Whenever he ran short of cash, he would dig out all the silver. Eventually he noticed he was accumulating LOTS of pennies.
Having come from very humble beginnings, one of nine children who lived on a farm, he had been taught thrift and respect –even for the lowly penny. He just kept saving those little coppers. It became a way of life... a project. One of his daydreams is to save a whole dump truck full of pennies. He'd like to drive up to a car lot and say, "I'll take that one and pull the lever on the dumper." His laugh was most hearty when he thought of paying the IRS in pennies.
Toward the end of the interview he shared some of his personal philosophy. He proposed that life is a lot like saving pennies: some of us ignore them and wave the clerk's hand away when offered them for change, some of us actually walk right on by if we spy one on the walkway. Pennies are small things. And yet, 10 make a dime, 100 make a dollar... and Sylvester has had as many as 100,000,000 of them all in one place. Small things do matter. Small things add up.
This holiday season I will notice the small things: the smell of fresh pine from my tree, small cookies J, Christmas music, gently falling snow (now, now just watch it for 15 minutes), red poinsettia, and watching, It's a Wonderful Life, with dear Jimmy Stewart.
For tons of laughter we watch, The Christmas Story. My children think the father in the story acts exactly like their dad so they laugh doubly hard. They recall all the famous Dickman Christmas trees stories. The time Dad had to cut a tree he'd picked out practically in half in order to fit it between floor and ceiling. The big holes in the trees that no one chose and were inexpensive. (It was a challenge to tie extra branches to the trunk so it looked full.) The time he almost cut his finger off trying to do the fresh cut step... actually that isn't funny unless you know my husband. I could tell so many stories on him... but I still live with him so I guess I'd better not.
The big thing in my life is my family. It too is the result of many seemingly small decisions. The time we decided to hand make gifts for each other. My son says he still can smell the red and blue paint that he used to paint scrap blocks of lumber so he could give his baby sister blocks. I think we still have some of them... I can't bare to part with the memory. The decision to take in foster babies (we have had 11) until they were formally adopted was a small, delightful decision at the time. All of those small things... lead to this big, funny, happy, caring group of people. I am blessed.
Save some pennies. Seek the simple. Share your blessings.
Happy Holidays from all of us at the Midwest Center!
