Old Shampoo

I still have the second 15 ounce bottle of baby shampoo I purchased 10 years ago in a BOGO – buy one get one – moment.  The optometrist suggested it would be a simple way to treat the rosacea on my eyelids – close your eyes and rub a little shampoo over the area every once in a while in the shower. It would have made sense to get a little bottle and try it out, but sale items at stores really can cloud your judgment. Right after the office visit, the stuff was on sale – BOGO! This will last for some time; I won’t have to worry about replenishing; and look how cheap it is! 

(As an aside, I can’t say BOGO without thinking of the doctoral student with that name who attended URC for several years in the 1970s.  He was from Indonesia and brought his family over for the last couple years of his work here.)

I often speculate (while standing in the shower) on whether this was a wise purchase.  Logistics optimization analysis just doesn’t work very well in this case. I certainly did get the best cost per ounce price possible. But the sale amount was so small that opportunity costs are negligible, and the only other thing I might have bought was a pack of baseball cards which have lost all value anyway. Storage costs might apply but the bottle didn’t bother anyone, sitting serenely on the crowded shelf for seven years before it was opened.

I do wonder if the shampoo is any good after all this time.  It seems to be darker than the contents of newer bottles although there is no expiration date – maybe they didn’t use expirations back then.  A couple of times I actually used it on my hair and it still lathers up just fine.  I’m not sure what to make of the optometrist’s latest admonition about taking care during the application, like maybe the whole concept was flawed…

In three or four years when the current bottle is nearly gone, I hope I will buy just one smaller bottle and not mind wasting the four cents I could “save” with a larger size.  But I will likely only make the purchase when there is a sale, and it will probably be one of those “25% off all health and beauty items” deals, with a minimum purchase level so I will have to lump it together with Q-tips, cotton balls, and toothpaste to meet the requirement.  Hopefully I will have a coupon for the toothpaste.

Cool Number Dates – 8/10/14-8/16/14

Monday is a fun sequence day: 8 / 11 / 14 has equal jumps of three between month, day, and year.

Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are all EVEN number dates: 8/10, 8/12, 8/14, and 8/16.

In some places, 8/16/14 is Jimmy Johns day – all sandwiches just a dollar over the lunch hour.  Line up early and bring your buck.

Ponderable

He who hesitates is …  Um…

If you say GULLIBLE slowly, it sounds like ORANGES

Charlie Brown referred me to a Good Grief counselor

Haven’t even started to procrastinate

Raising Lazarus

The story line in John 11 is full of the glory of God.  Jesus knows that he is going to Bethany so that He and His Father in heaven can raise his good friend Lazarus from the dead.  He does several things to make sure all the witnesses understand the significance of this miracle and who Jesus is.

He delays going, so that all will know that Lazarus has truly died – he is so dead that he has been buried. 

Jesus tells Martha that her brother will rise and then makes an astounding claim of deity: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” Not only can Jesus cause the resurrection, but he IS the embodiment of the resurrected, eternal life in fellowship with God.

Before going to where Lazarus was laid, Jesus has great compassion on the crowd and weeps.  His sorrow is genuine and deep.

When he arrives at the gravesite, he prays aloud so that all can hear, conversing with His Father in heaven and thanking Him for answering.  Everyone gathered there heard this prayer and understood to whom Jesus was speaking.

When Jesus calls Lazarus to come out, many witnesses believe; they know the glorious truth that Jesus is God and the Son of God and that he is also a man, the Son of Man described in Daniel. The awful truth is that some of the witnesses went immediately to tattle on Jesus to the Pharisees; they did not understand who Jesus was.

Ministry Support

This is the time of year when we redouble our prayer efforts for all the ministries that are re-starting for the new school year.  The Sunday evening prayer service was dedicated to discipleship opportunities for our children and youth – for the parents, Sunday school, youth groups, and other special occasions.   Tuesday morning prayer centered on a list of the start dates for some twenty-five events, trainings, retreats, conferences, and classes this fall.

The Executive Committee of the Consistory also used the ministry schedule, but focused beyond the events themselves.  We used a summary list of “mind-shifts” suggested by the excellent book The Trellis and the Vine, by Colin Marshal and Tony Payne.   Their premise is that a church needs enough administrative trellis to support all its members as vine-workers – disciple-making disciples of Jesus Christ.  But as churches age, it is easy to concentrate more on the programs (a bigger trellis) than on strengthening the vine-workers.

The ExComm list contains reminders of the importance of a discipleship mentality, and potential trellis problems to counteract:

-Running programs/events  or building/training people

-Filling gaps or training new workers

-Solving problems or helping people make progress

-Clinging to ordained ministry or developing team leadership

-Focusing on church polity or forging ministry partnerships

-Focusing on immediate pressures or aiming for long-term expansion

-Engaging in management or engaging in ministry

-Seeking church growth or desiring gospel growth

As we prayed, it was encouraging to see the number of trainings and classes with an emphasis on biblical foundations.  And it was a delight on Sunday night to see “Discipleship Opportunities” in the title in praying for the youth.

Seven I AMs

Several years ago Spartan Christian Fellowship at MSU distributed a green t-shirt With A Jesus-looking silhouette on the front and the seven I AM statements Jesus made in the book of John. The front asks “Who Is He?” and the back lists what “He said of himself”:

-I am the bread of life (John 6.35)

-I am the light of the world (8.12)

-I am the Gate for the sheep (10.9)

-I am the good shepherd (10.11)

-I am the resurrection and the life (11.25)

-I am the way, the truth, and the life (14.6)

-I am the one true vine (15.1)

All of these claims are references to Old Testament images for God, and all would be well-understood by His Jewish audience.  Jesus knew Himself to be God, and it is no wonder that any non-believing Jewish leader would be chagrined, outraged and  homicidal at hearing  these statements.