Category: Random Thoughts

An original story by Stan Escott for children with an active imagination, who can see themselves in the Reds and Greens of their lives.  God bless the readers and the dreamers.

Pause and Zipp were cousins. They loved each other.  They played together and had so much fun. Ah, but there was a difference, a BIG, BIG difference, more than the fact that Zipp liked RED things, and Pause liked GREEN.

Anyone could see that they were different when they would go to the park. Zipp was always running, as fast as he could. He would zoom here, and he would zoom there, and then he would come zooming back, and do it all over again! He was so fast, why many thought that Zipp could run as fast as the wind!

All the while, Pause would sit and rest and watch Zipp fly by, and would laugh and admire his friend’s zoomies, and wished he could run so fast. But Pause loved to come to the park for another reason. He enjoyed resties, just looking at the green of the garden and admire the flowers. Pause would look for bugs and worms and watch the birds that flew by. He was very observant and thoughtful, and believed that everything under the sun were gifts from God.

One day, when Zipp was zooming around, he was going so fast that he did not see the stone in the path! As he went zooming by he tripped! Oh, No, and went head over heels, and heels over head, until KERR-PLOP!  Poor Zipp landed beside Pause, who was resting beside the stream, watching the frogs frolic in the water.

Now Zipp was not hurt, but he needed to rest and drink the cool water which Pause gave him. While the friends sat resting together, watching the frogs at play. Pause told Zipp all about the garden, the flowers, the names of birds that were flying by, and pointed out cloud formations in the deep blue sky.

And Zipp learned a lot about watching and observing and resting, and he knew that he could always run fast, but now he knew he could rest and enjoy the garden, the bugs, the clouds in the sky, and even a wooly worm that slowly crawled by.

Pause knew that while he could always rest and watch for bugs and frogs and clouds, but he learned there were times when he, too, could zoom, almost as fast as Zipp, and he found it was lots of fun to do both, to zoom and restie.

And so Pause and Zipp learned together that each had talent and wonders to share. Now anyone could tell there were differences, but it was those differences that made each of them special.

What could you learn today about zooming fast or resting still, or just observing what you will?

A cloud, a flower, a bird on the wing, just about any ole thing?

After all, it’s there for you, made by God, it must be true.

The End

Stan Escott (3/1/26)

Thirty years or more ago, 24 members of my church set out on a “Great Experiment”, a commitment to practice five disciplines for just 30 days.  The five disciplines were:

1. We met each week to pray together, and to share our thoughts.
2. We were committed to giving two hours of our time each week to God. This was a form of self-surrender and was not defined except that we let God lead in how that time was spent.
3. We were committed to giving one/tenth of our monthly income to God.
4. We were committed to spending the morning period, 5:30-6:00 a.m., in prayer, meditation and study of scripture. Many in our group started journaling.
5. The fifth discipline involved a form of witnessing to God by reaching out to others anonymously, an act of kindness, an unexpected gift, an expression of support.

By the end of the 30 days, the 24 found that they were changed, in subtle ways, and each one was excited to continue the Great Experiment into the next month.  There was something contagious about the practice of those five disciplines.  What started out as a kind of obligation gradually became a true commitment.  We could feel God leading us.

We continued the Great Experiment, month after month, for eight years!  Along the way, we lost some of our members, so that at the time we made the decision to end the program, there remained six of our original 24.  Also along the way, another group of Great Experimenters began, a gathering of approximately 15, and continued for an extended period.

What we found, at its heart, was as form of pure giving.  Whether it was our time, or our outreach, or our study, it was turning God’s gift around and passing it on.

Pure giving.  In Rachel Remen’s book My Grandfathers Blessings, she tells of a lesson she learned from her grandfather.  The lesson involved the eight levels of “charity” as outlined in the Talmud:

• The eighth and most basic level, has a person grudgingly buying a coat for a shivering person who has asked for help. Gives it to him in the presence of witnesses, and waits to be thanked.
• At the seventh level, a person does the same grudging thing without waiting to be asked for help.
• At the sixth level, a person does this same thing, willingly, without waiting to be asked for help.
• At the fifth level, a person gives a coat that he has bought to another, but does so in private, and with an open heart.
• At the fourth level, a person openheartedly and privately gives his own coat to another.
• At the third level, a person openheartedly gives his own coat to another who does not know who has given him this gift. But the man himself knows the person who is indebted to him.
• At the second level, a person openheartedly gives his own coat to another and has no idea who has received it. But the man who receives it knows to whom he is indebted.
• At the first, and the purest level of giving, a man openheartedly gives his own coat away without knowing who will receive it, and he who receives it does not know who has given it to him.

How do we approach our giving?  Here at Zion we make pledges and a record is kept of our progress in meeting that pledge.  There are practical reasons our giving is handled this way.  But as I consider the eight levels of giving, I wonder where does our tithe fit in?  We say our giving to Zion is giving to God’s service, but where does our  giving sto Zion touch the needs of people in our community?

I think about the Great Experiment and that fifth discipline.  As a group we struggled with this act of kindness each day, and many of our weekly meetings were spent seeking ways to carry out that discipline… anonymously!  And I wonder if we were being too literal, with too little spontaneity, with too much particularity.

Rachel Reimen ends her story with two statements that have such meaning:  “Some things have so much goodness in them that they are worth doing any way that you can.”  I think the five disciplines of the Great Experiment has that quality of goodness that is worth doing. The Great Experiment prepared many of us for what came next – Via Di Cristo!

The second statement is a simple one, loaded with meaning.  It says that “it is better to bless life badly than not to bless it at all.”

Giving.  Think about it and let God bless you, and you in turn, pass it on!

Have a generous, Christian, Christmas season.

For What It’s Worth.

-30-

[NOTE – This article originally ran in our church newsletter, The Teller.]