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Is it hard to save money? Does it vanish as soon as you get it? I like stunts you can do at the dinner table. It makes money disappear into a paper napkin. Watch this video and be amazed!
Preparation for this activity: You need a square paper napkin, a dime and scotch tape or magnetic tape.
Do: Before you have someone watch this stunt, roll a piece of tape in a tube. Put it in the corner of the napkin. Cover this tape and the corner of the napkin with your palm. Now, you are ready for your audience.
Say: Does anyone have a dime? (This stunt works best with a light weight coin, like a dime. )
Say: I am going to make this dime vanish before your eyes! If I can make it vanish, the dime is mine. Watch carefully!
Do: Place the dime in the center of the napkin while your right palm stays on the corner that has the tube of tape. Fold one corner to the center of the napkin but do not cover the dime. Fold another corner. Don’t cover the dime! Now, carefully, fold the corner you are hiding over on top of the dime so that it sticks to the dime.
Wave your fingers mysteriously over the folded napkin holding the dime. Now, unfold the corners very carefully. Last, you will unfold the corner holding the dime. Again, cover the dime with your palm and fingers as you unfold it.
Say: The coin vanished.
Do: Carefully slide the dime off the tape and wave the empty napkin in front of the audience.
Discussion:
Some things never stay where you put them. Things vanish or they never stay shut, settled or closed. My zippers un-zip, my toothpaste cap goes wandering and the toothpaste tube will not stay perfectly squeezed. My shoelaces get undone and bicycle tires must continuously be inflated.
What are some things that keep you busy nearly every day? Do your blankets slip off the bed? Is it difficult to keep keys, wallet or purse in their place?
We learn from the things that give us trouble. We must slow down and do things carefully and calmly.
I have had huskies escape, boats wander away, and shoes go missing. This is a sign that I am in too much of a hurry. Normally, people do things calmly and quietly, slowly and confidently. That isn’t me. Is that your behavior?
There is a funny, true story about my brother, Thor, that shows we both have a little too much energy. Thor came over for a dinner party. After everyone left, I asked him if he wanted some left overs. He nodded enthusiastically and dashed off to the kitchen to load up his car with extra dishes filled with really good food.
You can imagine my surprise when I looked in the refrigerator later that night and found the dog food was missing. I packed it in a regular plastic container along with left overs. Thor thought it was pate! Pate is usually a dip made from crushed and blended meat. It was crushed and blended meat, alright, horse meat!
Here is one of my favorite jokes on the same subject:
The queen was having problems retrieving a document from her computer. She called all her ministers into the throne room and asked them what she should do. They went away and debated for hours and hours. Finally, the ministers came up with a solution and dispatched messengers to all four points of the kingdom. These gathered evfery citizen they could find and brought them all to the castle. The proud ministers made all the women, men, children, and babes in arms stand in a long line and presented them to the queen.
“What is the meaning of this?” the irate monarch demanded.
“Why,” her chief minister responded, “…we thought you were looking for a single file!”
Scriptural Application:
Eccles. 3:1-22
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; …
Never be in a hurry. Do everything with a calm, quiet spirit. All things that need to be done will be finished. It is the Lord who establishes our footsteps.
Boundaries: “Slowing Down and Setting Boundaries” by Kirsten Dalquist
“One of the things that I realized was the importance of rest and play, and the willingness to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. A lot of people told me that when they put their work away and when they try to be still and be with family, sometimes they feel like they’re coming out of their skins. They’re thinking of everything they’re not doing, and they’re not used to that pace. So when we make the transition from crazy-busy to rest, we have to find out what comforts us, what really refuels us, and do that.”
“We deserve to not just put work away and be in service of someone else. What’s really meaningful for us? What do we want to be doing? That happens not just in work culture, I see it even with teenagers who now have four and five hours of homework and go to bed at one in the morning. We don’t know who we are without productivity as a metric of our worth. We don’t know what we enjoy, and we lose track of how tired we are.”
