Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. …
For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

• James 1:2-3, 11-18

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

• Romans 5:1-5

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs got a bamboo shoot stuck in her teeth.  I flossed the pesky thing away, but then she got a “log” stuck in her teeth mixed up with the “log” Jesus talked about being stuck in our eyes.  We spent some time talking about not judging, but then we cannot ignore church discipline either.

It was the Thanksgiving week.  While a lot of people take off for the holiday, even taking all week, I find that some mill managers use that time of things being slow to catch up on paperwork and see a few crazy salesmen that might still be on the road.  One manager near where we were staying even wanted me to come by on Black Friday.  I was glad his office was outside the fenced plant enclosure.  The gates were automated for only people with badges.  Even then, I called him from the phone in the lobby and he came and ushered me to his office.  He had some specific needs and he wanted to talk to me without his middle managers interrupting with objections.  I came away with a large sales order.  If I had not had three ten-million-dollar sales during the year, this would have been my top order, a lot of high-end custom designed equipment that would pay for itself by not breaking down as often – which means the mill kept running.

When I got back to the hotel, Babs was frustrated.  She met me in the lobby and talked my ear off, all the way to the room.  I had not prepared her for Black Friday.  There were great deals and she missed them all.  I kept nodding and telling her to wait until we got to the room.  We needed to dig deeper on some of our Bible lessons, and tell her what Black Friday was all about.

When she got in the room, she went straight for the tiny round table next to the easy chair.  She already had the Bible on the table.

“Okay, Big Boy,” she giggled, “Explain Black Friday.  What have I missed today?”

I shrugged as I pulled the office chair from the desk over to our study area.  I said, “Oh, you might have missed getting trampled to death, beaten up, called a lot of dirty names, or coming away from the store with a false sense that you have saved money.”

She scrunched her nose.  “All those are bad.  Anything good?”

I again shrugged, “If you were the first in the store without getting trampled and you only bought the one item that was a loss leader and you left the store with it without getting mugged, then you saved some money.  Even then, did you need it?  And did you need it now?  Remember when Black Friday is.”

Babs sang, “1, 2, 3.”  Then I joined in singing, “I don’t know!”

I nodded, “Okay.  Black Friday ‘sales’ may be a few times each year when sales are typically low, just to get you to buy something you might not need or you do not need it now.  If that silly sale is when someone has a birthday, you enjoy a bargain purchase.  But the real Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving Day.”

Babs groaned, “And I am thankful Thanksgiving Day is over.  You were not thankful about anything, Harold.  You ate an overpriced turkey dinner and then we sat in the hotel room, and you fell asleep watching football games.”

I nodded, “Yeah, that is the way it works most years.  I am usually on my return trip to the office this time of year.  That gives me a few weeks to make some last minute sales, and then I take vacation around Christmas and New Years before I start my Southern sales trip.  In the winter, go South.  In the summer, go North.  Next Spring, we will go West, going Southwest first and then work our way to Seattle after the snow becomes less likely in the mountains.”

Babs nodded, “I have studied your patterns to avoid bad weather.  And you explained the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and the people who were native to America, just before you became comatose and I got to read a different translation of the Bible.  Thank you for buying me a Message Bible.  It was really different, but the message stayed the same.”

I nodded, “Eugene Petersen translated and paraphrased at the same time.  He started with the original languages, but then he made the illustrations more appropriate to today.  Do you know what a loss leader is?”

Babs smiled, “No.  That is why I come to you to learn.”  She blinked a few times for emphasis.

I snickered, “Okay, a loss leader is something that you advertise as a great sales price.  You are even selling it as a loss, but it gets everyone into the store and those people who think everything is marked down will buy other items in the store.  But those items are overpriced.  So, if you buy the loss leader and then leave the store without buying anything else, the store loses money.  But chances are, while you are in the store, you will keep buying.  But even then, you need to be careful.  Loss leaders are all over the place on Black Friday.”

Babs asked, “So, you have to know what the true value of the product is?”

I nodded, “Yes.  And you have to stick to your guns.  My wife only went to one Black Friday sale.  She came home with her prized possession, but she was crying.”

Babs asked, “Why? Was she beaten up like you were saying?”

I shook my head, “No, she avoided those, but she was dutifully standing in line at five in the morning.  When the employee unlocked the front door, people that had just showed up shoved past all the people in line, trampled the employee, and as my wife timidly went into the store, she saw another employee administering first aid to the person who unlocked the door.  There were a half dozen loss leaders in the store.  She wanted a DVD player.  We had never bought one and they usually cost over $150.  This store had them for sale for $49.99, a third of the regular price.  They had put the loss leaders in the aisles and she went to the aisle with the DVD players.  There were twenty women in a big fight trying to be the first one to get a box, but there were over one hundred boxes, enough for everyone, but they were too frantic and maybe temporarily insane to notice there was no need to rush.  The women were throwing fists.  They were pulling hair.  They were kicking each other.  They were knocking over clothing racks to block the lane or hit another customer.  Some women gave up, never getting a DVD player due to two black eyes and a bloody nose.  My wife saw the inhumanity being displayed by these supposed humans, and an employee whispered in her ear, ‘Ma’am, I see this is your first Black Friday and you are overwhelmed.  I just dropped another pallet of DVD players right behind you and no one has noticed.  I cut through the shrink wrap and here is yours.  You might be first to the register.’  He handed my wife the DVD player and she nearly ran to the checkout.  No one had gotten to the checkout yet.  They were all either continuing shopping or continuing fighting.  My wife bought the one item and drove home just as I was starting to wake up.  She cried for an hour.  She had lost any hope for humanity after seeing the impatience, the greed, and the anger that Black Friday can cause.  She became like me after that day.  Buy safe presents for Christmas in October, wrap them, and hide them.  When the children were little, that best toy of the year was always the hard thing to get.”

Babs said, “But your wife got the bargain, and she did not get hurt.  Right?!”

I nodded, “She did not get injured.  She got the advertised loss leader bargain without buying the overpriced things around it, but the DVD player fell apart six months later when the price had dropped to $49.95.  Electronic things like that are always overpriced until they see how the market is going and then they drop the price to a normal price.  If we were patient, we could have saved four cents, without the fist fights and hair pulling, and trampling employees.  Yes, we watched a few DVDs, but I think our best bargain was my wife learning what Black Friday is all about.”

Babs asked, “So, what is it all about?”

I frowned, “It is the first major shopping day before Christmas.  Christmas should be a religious holiday, but everyone, even unbelievers, celebrate the buying, buying, buying of the Christmas season.  They use the loss leader technique.  They use the ‘limited supply’ technique.  The bargain is only good for that day and only as supplies last.  One local electronics store was almost giving away this huge television.  People camped in front of the store overnight just to find out the store had only one of the sale priced televisions in stock.  They got a black eye in the press, but they sold a lot of televisions at overpriced prices that day.  Mom and dad did not want to disappoint the children.  And not disappointing the children drives a lot of people to make bad decisions.  And I do not suggest trying to teach the children economic frugality.  They scream loudly, and they do not listen when they do not get the toy they want.”

I sighed, “In some stores, the sales on Black Friday can turn a bad year into a good year.  Waiting another week, the customer might save more money without the fist fight.  Then as you get closer to Christmas, the prices get higher and higher.  Christmas Eve is the day nothing is on sale.  Everything is overpriced.  The shelves are half empty, but too many people procrastinate, and they lose.  Then Christmas becomes a day of anger instead of love.  Christ was born.  God became a person, a little baby person that had to grow up, just to save us from our sins, and all of that is lost in fist fights and hair pulling.”

Babs shook her head, “I’m glad I missed Black Friday then.”

I laughed, “I’m glad you did too.  I would have a hard time explaining to Morrie that the doll he bought me lost her life in a fist fight at the department store, and I needed a new one.”

Babs was doubling over in laughter, “That would be hard to explain!  But we need some Scripture to tie this together.”

I nodded, “Okay, we could go back to our greedy verses, but let’s look at James 1.  The chapter starts out with counting it Joy when we face trials, and you did not know it, but your trial today was being tempted to just go watch the madness of Black Friday.  You could have been beaten up because they did not know you were just there to watch.  After my wife got home, we learned of a woman who came out a few minutes after my wife did and the other woman was killed.  She had been lucky enough to get each sales item and someone killed her and stole everything.  They must have thought that my wife with only one box wasn’t worth the effort.”

Babs went, “Wow!”

I nodded, “But in verse eleven it says that the person who stood the test is blessed and will receive a crown.  And then it talks about how God does not tempt, and that is one of the biggest things about Black Friday.  Temptation to get greedy.  And then impatience, because the prices might get lower, that is except for that loss leader.”

Babs added, “But even then, the loss leader came down in price six-months later.”

I nodded, “You cannot guarantee that, but if you understand the market, you can know the price will soon drop.  That takes patience.  What does James 1 talk about the progress from temptation to Satan’s ultimate goal?”

Babs beamed.  She was getting better at paraphrasing, “Temptation creates desire, desire creates sin, and sin leads to death.”

I smiled, “Very good, but sin and death is not what we want, so let’s cut off the head of that particular snake at temptation, before it becomes desire.”

Babs then frowned, “But then the next verses talk about the only good and perfect gift comes from God.  Why does the world settle for poor imitations?  Why do they buy DVD players at a sale price when that is not what will make us happy from an ultimate point of view?”

I leaned over and kissed her forehead.  “That is a great question and I have asked myself that for so many Christmases.  So much anger.  So much pushing and shoving, just to get something that does not really give you lasting Joy.  I bought countless overpriced games for Morrie’s gaming system just to have him master the game in the first weekend of playing it, and then whining for another game Sunday night.  A vicious cycle.”

“But what about the beginning of Romans 5?  How does that work with what we are talking about?” Babs asked.

I slid the Bible aside and I put a flash drive on the table.  “I hate to trivialize this part of the Bible because Paul is talking about real suffering, but let’s say this is the game Morrie wants more than anything, and let’s say Morrie is twelve or thirteen-years-old.”  Babs nodded. “Morrie is going to suffer when I say know, but you can immediately see how when Morrie understands the reason for his suffering he is enduring perseverance.  He learns what pleases me in his behavior and he starts doing those things so that my heart will be softened.  You might say that is greed at work, but if Morrie is really understanding the process and he works that muscle of “doing the right thing” maybe he will do it when he doesn’t want something.  When that happens, he has developed just a little bit of character.  Now the ultimate goal is for us to desire God, thus the hope is found in God, but for Morrie, his hope is in the development and behavioral character being displayed, he might convince me to buy the game.  But when we relate this story of an earthly father and an earthly son to our Heavenly Father and each of us, we go through the same process.  We suffer, but if our desire is God, we persevere, we build character, and with an ever-improving understanding of what our true desire is and our ultimate goal, God gives us Hope.  That takes patience, Babs, not fist fighting at the department store on Black Friday.”

Babs smiled, “You are a good teacher, Harold.  Thank you, but I dread the next month.  When will Christmas be over?”

“Babs!” I exclaimed. “We just had Thanksgiving yesterday!  We have a month left.  But thinking of Thanksgiving, let’s go to the family restaurant next door.  I’m starved, and I have a great bonus to spend.  Dessert is on me.”

Then, Babs got serious, “Harold, have you ever sold a loss leader to take advantage of someone who was not patient?”

I shook my head, “Our pricing is almost always the same.  We are an engineering company that designs and builds unique systems.  We have an estimate of how many man-hours it takes to get the work done and from our usual vendors what everything costs.  Then we ask for about a ten percent increase for our profit.  Now, if the engineers are more efficient, we might make a little more.  But I have sold at a loss.  In hard times, we can lose a little money just to get cash to pay the employees.  That works if we have some money in the bank or we borrow a little money.  If we do not get that money losing job, we have to lay off our workers.  But when we do that, we don’t have any overpriced items we tempt the customer with.  Our modest profit and that is it.”

Babs grinned, “You are a good man, Harold Dykstra.  But next time, you need to add in some woman-hours.  You need more women engineers at your company.”

“Babs!  Man-hours is just an expression for the people hours it takes to design and build what the customer wants!  We have women who work at the company!”

Babs giggled, “Gotcha!”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

My wife bought that DVD player and the DVD player died six months later and the new, non-sale price of the exact same model was five cents cheaper.  But we had to buy the replacement.  We had bought a ton of DVDs by then, all at the regular store price.  Ah, another way to make money.  I told my wife at the time that if we bought the DVDs at that store, they could give us money to get the player, and in six months they would have turned a nice profit off the DVD sales.  My wife said something about how she liked the way my brain worked, but the world did not do it that way.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.