Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Smiles from Giving

 


At Christmas, a neighbor brought me gifts, smiling, barely speaking English. She was one of the first to identify me as the phantom rose donor and daffodil distributor. She stopped her car as she was going by our rented house on the cul-de-sac. "You gave us roses. I see you."

For Christmas, she knocked on the door, smiled and gave me a brand-new blanket, a big cup full of candy, and a few other items. I passed the blanket onto someone who cannot bear the cold.

Giving makes us smile, a great feeling. I am looking forward to the daffodil crop, which will be distributed to everyone and anyone. Cutting flowers makes the bulb stronger.

We have a newborn in our congregation - Avelin. Mothers give so much and people love to give to babies.

We have an unusual book program. We give Bibles and doctrinal books to people without cost. I reasoned that the doctrinal and historical books have more reach when given away. I look at the 3,000 book collections - staged behind pastors who do not read those books, but talk endlessly on their videos. I figure others would like to have the King James Version and books about the Bible's message.

I wanted to send the Martin Chemnitz biography to a pastor. In his land, the book sells for $255 from Amazon. Here it sells for $5. I sent him two. 

People have given the most in publishing by writing reviews for Amazon. That gets others out of their Objective (Faithless) Justification air castes.

PFC really liked my three-volume Byzantine Empire boxed set, one of my all-time favorite books, so I gave the set to him, almost new. I am not going to read the set again when there is so much else to do, and I am glad when others appreciate worthwhile books. I did that at UOP until we got to the generation that views TikToks rather than reading any books.