August 17, 2010

• How I Spent My Summer, # 1: In the Library (or the story of the $ 95 blog)

  Earlier this summer we traveled out West, with stops in South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

  I do hope to post on that sometime. But that will take a bit more effort. Sorting through pictures, etc.

  Today I’d like to share a little story of an incident that happened the Friday after we returned home.

  I often meet up with a friend Friday mornings and sometimes head over to one of my favorite libraries afterwards.

  So I did that very thing that Friday morning.

  I think I’d gotten a little nugget of an idea for the post I began writing that day sometime the night before or that morning.

  As I sat down with my laptop and coffee travel mug (yes, they’re allowed at this library), it began to flow.

  (No, not the coffee, but the words! )

  Praying and reflecting.

  Reading and contemplating on Scripture.

  More writing, some fixes, edits, tweaks.

  Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

  Etc., etc., etc.

  Finally it was finished.

  If you’ve been reading on my other site, you know I’ve been serious about joy.

  So that post was another one in my series of letters on assurance and fighting for joy.

  dear devil/dear flock of God (day in, day out): Letter 63 on assurance & joy was posted at 2:42 that Friday afternoon.

  Don’t ask me all I did after I posted that entry.

  A bit of reading, commenting, messaging, pondering, looking out the window (nice view), sipping on cold coffee, idk.

  Anyhow, 4:15 rolls around.

  An announcement comes that the front desk that the library will be closing at 4:30.

  (This is a private college library and this was one of those dead weeks during the summer.)

  “Ok,” I think, “Fine. I’ll start packing up. I should get going. I’m hungry after all. Where has the time gone?”

  (I confess I can get pretty carried away with reading and writing and so forth.)

  As soon I stepped out of the cool library into the bright summer heat, I remembered…

  “My car is parked in the tow zone!”

  (No parking between 4pm and 6pm on weekdays.)

  Oops!

  I couldn’t help but chuckle (yes, it was a bit of an annoyed chuckle), knowing I had just finished that post on joy.

  God does have a sense of humor (or is it humour?).

  I did pick up the pace, however, thinking that perhaps they’d not come around to tow my car to who knows where.

  Well, I got there.

  My car wasn’t there.

  I called a friend to get the phone number for the parking enforcement people.

  She was there to get my call.

  The friend I chose to call did live nearby – just in case I’d be in need of a ride to who knows where to get my car.

  Turns out it was towed to an open spot a couple blocks away so I was able to retrieve it easily.

  Of course, there was a price to pay…

  

  The small print says $ 95.

  $ 50 for towing.

  $ 45 to the city.

  Blockhead. Idiot.

  Yes, I won’t do that again, I’m sure.

  So there we have it.

  How I spent my summer, # 1:

  In the library.

  This is the story of the $ 95 blog.

  Let’s think about this now.

  As of tonight here’s the view count and recs for that particular post:

  Posted 7/9/2010 2:42 PM – 26 Views – 6 eProps – 5 comments

  recs
  2

  So, according to my calculations, that works out to

  just under $ 16 / eProp

  or $ 19 / comment,

  well, technically a cool $ 47.50 / comment (not counting my comments),

  or $ 47.50 / rec.

  Um, yeah, I’m not getting that money.

  Was it worth it?

  Yes!

  Priceless.

  I’ve heard some ministers say they would pay to preach.

  My hope and prayer is that all ministers would say that.

  I don’t get paid for doing what I do.

  There’s a lot of freedom that comes with that.

  It’s my joy and pleasure and privilege to write to make Christ known and build up the Church.

  So long as God provides for me and gives me words to write, I hope to continue to do so.

  I Corinthians 9:15-18.

  But I hope not to get any more parking tickets.

  

  • 11:17 PM
  • 3 Comments