Looking Thrice at a Penny....

Friends:

Looking Thrice at a Penny

I'm leaving Atlanta (again!) for the Coast today and I'm thinking about pennies - yes, pennies, since that's about all I earned on this trip. Indians have a saying that in order to see things as they really are one must look at them more than once. I often try this, and I've been looking at a penny now for about an hour. Here's what I saw!

First Look: It's made up no longer of copper but a zinc alloy and appeared in 1909, commemorating the Centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. There are about 444 billion pennies in circulation. Stamped on one side is the bust of Lincoln; on the other side, the Lincoln Memorial. Inscribed on the former "In God We Trust" and "Liberty" and the mint date. On the latter, "United States of America" and the "one cent" (presumably in the event we forget who we are or how to count).

Second Look: After some meditation along I-16 - a good road on which to think and nap -- I also noticed irony and metaphor: Lincoln, proclaiming "Liberty," but himself yet a slave on a worthless piece of zinc, pleading for "Emancipation," to a coin of value more worthy of his stature ..... which reminds me of the Pharisees' comment about Jesus: "He saved others, himself he could not save." And now think of the despicable treatment of the penny --- you see them lying about everywhere, among cigarette butts and similar detritus, unwanted, common -- yet, a reminder of a man who acted on the faith of his convictions to free an enslaved race. And again a Bible verse comes to mind; " .... and by it he, being dead, yet speaketh." See what thoughts occur along I-16?

Final Look: Yes, one penny buys little. But did you know that states, counties and cities, use what's called a SPLOST -- special purpose local option sales tax - whereby the multiplicity of pennies funds much of our infrastructure? In Glynn County, a five-year SPLOST is planned to generate $92 million for new schools - -all from a one-penny sales tax levy. Imagine!! So it seems to me that Honest Abe is still doing his work of emancipation - even on an ugly coin of little value .... Imagine!!

Well, it reminds me of the importance of all the small, unseen, common things we each do in our daily lives -- they may seem irrelevant, but the third look proves otherwise. I like what Mother Teresa says:
"Small acts of kindness with great love." Imagine what they will produce!


Bud
February 15, 2007