Jim Taylor’s Weblog

Wednesday September2, 2009

Delighted to help…

Dear Red Cross,
        I’m not sure how long you’ve been sending me letters. Certainly I did not initiate this recurring correspondence.
        Let me state first that I have no animosity towards you. I value the work you have done, especially during wars. I do not hold the tainted blood scandal against you any more – although I admit that at the time, I was angry about your apparent preference for protecting your reputation over your compassion for the victims of HIV-infected blood supplies.
        I have, however, my own list of over a dozen charities that my wife and I support financially. I won’t bore you with the names of these charities, or the reasons why we choose to support them, except to say that we have some kind of personal connection with each one. So we’re not likely to stop supporting any of them. But also, since we’re already giving well over ten per cent of our retirement income to these worthwhile causes, we are not likely to add a new charity to our list either.
        I’ve been wondering how much it costs you to send me your more-or-less monthly requests. I visited my local copy shop and requested an estimate for a large volume printing of a personalized four-page letter, with reply card and prepaid return envelope. They estimated the direct costs of paper, card stock, envelopes, color printing, and stuffing at $1.95 per unit. Then it would cost you 54 cents to mail the letter, plus another 54 cents if I reply. I’m guessing that each letter must also involve at least $1.00 worth of staff time, just for handling and processing, for a total of around $4.00 per piece.
        Obviously, this does not include any additional inducements you enclose, such as fancy return address labels, personalized note pads, corporate calendars, etc.
        Conservatively, then, your mailings to me must cost you around $48 a year.
        I’d like to make a deal with you. If you stop sending letters asking me to contribute, you would automatically have an additional $48 available for your various worthy causes. That’s revenue that you wouldn’t have otherwise, just as valuable as if I sent you a $48 donation.
        As compensation for forgoing the pleasure of your correspondence, I would appreciate a charitable donation receipt for the $48 I shall be saving you each year.
        Otherwise, I look forward to not hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Jim Taylor
=====================================
Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
        Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn’t delete your message. =====================================

Your Turn



Last week, I mused about our material and our non-material possessions. We can all look at people who have — in our opinion – too many material possessions. And we know of people who have too few material possessions – such as food, shelter, medication, etc. But, I asked, do the same standards apply to non-materials things – like friendships? Love? Sharing?

=====================================

About My Paraphrases

Occasionally, I get frustrated by the Bible. Not usually by the message, which is timeless, but by the language and metaphor. Contemporary translations update the language, but not the metaphor, so the text still expects us to respond to images of deserts and tents, camels and droughts, kings and concubines. What we’ve learned since the Bible was written — about psychology and evolution, about quantum physics and astronomy, computers and fossil fuels – is simply left out.
        At such times, I start paraphrasing. I don’t pretend that these paraphrases rely on new translations of original texts. They are, rather, my way of writing what I think the original writers might have said IF they lived today. Sometimes I stick close to the traditional versification; sometimes I take liberties.
        My paraphrase of Paul’s letter to the Romans attempts to put Paul’s sometimes convoluted words — and argument — into a contemporary setting. If Paul were writing today, to the Christian church, I’m not sure he’d worry as much about the failure of the Jews to follow Christ as about the failure of Christians to follow Christ, so I have rephrased in those terms. I suspect he would also make use of quotations from the Gospels — which of course didn’t exist when he wrote his letters — rather than using quotations from the only scriptures he had available, which we call the Old Testament.
        About 200 people have requested the paraphrase of Romans, as an electronic file.
        I now have two new paraphrases available, for Ecclesiastes and Job. Ecclesiastes sticks pretty much to the biblical flow of verses – though with, I hope, some sense of humour. Job cuts 42 chapters down to about three pages. I found the speeches in Job interminable; the only way I could make sense of the various characters’ verbal meanderings was to turn them into television sound-bites.
        I’m making these available the same way as Romans – on the honor system. You send me an e-mail and request the file you want. I’ll send it. If you like it, and want to keep it, you send me a cheque for $5 by snail mail. If you don’t like it, simply erase it from your hard disk and send nothing.

=====================================

*****************************************