The Ivory Soap Standard

Well, this will be my first post of the New Year. I really should have posted yesterday, but things got busy, and I'm not going to make excuses, but I do apologize.

On Sunday, December 23rd, the PK's (Preacher's Kids) at my church passed out 3X5 cards, and asked each of us to write down a prayer that had been answered in 2007. On December 31st (8 days later), they posted those responses, printed out on individual pieces of colored paper. They had entered all of this information into a computer, and loaded the printer with colored paper, and then printed these things out. Now, when I say PK's, I should explain, I'm not talking about the stereotypical teen-aged PK's that keep getting arrested for smoking dope or shoplifting, or maybe just always seem to be hanging with the wrong crowd. These are very responsible, twenty-something's who work full time, are active in the church, help plan events (sometimes are the driving force behind events). My point is, I don't know how they found time to even read all those 3X5 cards, much less enter all that into a computer, and then print them out. I teased them a little bit about some typo's that I found; in retrospect I don't think I should have. I found 4 typo's, I think that meets the Ivory Soap Standard: 99 44/100 %. Nobody's perfect. For them to have done what they did, to that degree of accuracy, in the amount of time that they did it, is pretty amazing.

I am also amazed at some of the needs that have been met in my church family in the past year. We don't have many people that grumble and complain (at least not to me), but there are things posted that I had no idea anyone in the church was facing, much less had gotten past. These were all posted anonymously, so I don't know who was healed of cancer this past year, but I know someone was, I read the sign. Someone else had many healings this past year; I don't know how many, nor do I know the nature of the healings, but I am impressed. Someone walked away from a head-on collision. Someone's cousin had successful brain surgery.

That may confuse some people: I talked about healings, and then I talked about surgery. I believe in healings, but I also believe in doctors. I believe that sometimes God gives an individual a talent for medicine. I don't even think that the surgeon has to acknowledge God as the source of his talent in order to perform well in the operating room; I do think that eventually he will have to answer for that if he doesn't.

Misconceptions

I've blogged about logic errors in the past, and some of what I'm going to post about today I may have posted in the past, but not in as much detail.
I had someone tell me once "You can't play 'Taps' on a bugle. I know because I play the cornet, and a cornet is just like a bugle, except that it has valves. I can play 'Taps' on the cornet, but I have to use the valves, so you can't really play 'Taps' on the bugle." I asked him if he was aware that 'Taps' was written for the bugle, and he said he was, but that it was fake. It seems to me that either he was very confused, or a whole bunch of bugle players are...
I had a school project once that involved a team of students planning a theoretical medical clinic for a low-income neighborhood. I think we came up with some reasonable guesstimates for how big a facility we would need, how big the staff should be, etc. The rub came when we were trying to establish a salary for the doctor. I felt that we might be able to coax a civic-minded doctor into working at this clinic for $60,000. One of my teammates told me I was being extravagant, "My mother is a nurse, and she only makes $18,000." "That's because she's a nurse. We're talking about a doctor." "It's the same thing. Nurses have to go through just as much training as doctors do." "Then why aren't they doctors?" Eventually I was overruled, and we ended up getting a good grade, even though the teacher couldn't understand how we thought we could get a doctor on board for only $18,000 (she liked the rest of it, though).
I also had a classmate tell me that secretaries are the most important part of any big business. She knew this because her mom was a secretary. They do all the real work. I can understand that, to some extent, she's right. A good secretary takes care of a lot of details, so that the executive doesn't have to be bothered with them. A good secretary types, and files, and can find things later when they need them. The executive makes decisions. To be honest, there are probably a lot of secretaries out there that have been in the business long enough that they could make better decisions, just based on experience. But that isn't what they were hired to do. Maybe somebody smart should check out his secretarial staff for smart people next time he needs a new executive. I'm not holding my breath, though, and I don't think you should either.