Wheatback Pennies and Worth

I was cleaning up my room this weekend...as I try to do every weekend.   Despite being immaculate at the week’s beginnings, something always happens.  I suspect a series of tornadoes caused by the quickly changing pressure systems in my apartment (aka: the more stressful things are, the more my life has this tendency to spiral and things just sort of fly through the air and land where they may...). 

But, alas, I digress.

Needless, upon picking up, I placed some odds and ends in a small wooden bowl where I tend to keep, well, odd and ends.  At the bottom, however, I noticed a penny.  I thought this interesting.  Pennies have a very particular place in an old Jone’s Soda bottle in my room.  I picked it up, ready to place it in its proper spot, when I realized why I had placed it to the side.  It wasn’t just a normal brown penny. It was, in fact, a 1953 minted Wheatback Penny.

Admittedly, to me, though fascinating (I love “old” things)...still it is worth just about, well, one cent.  Not worthless – I do keep collecting my jar of pennies which I know currently contains several dollars because they add up – but lets face it, no one really misses them when they’re gone.  And my wheat penny?  Had I realized it was missing (not likely as I had forgotten I had it to begin with), its loss would have probably been met with a “bummer” and that, that would have been it.

So, other than the fact it was “cool”, why did I keep it around?  Caleb.  My younger brother Caleb enjoys coins.  He collected/s the state quarters and has a mass assortment of varying coins from varying countries. Initially I had set this penny aside because I knew Caleb would probably appreciate it and see in it a worth that wasn’t in my line of vision or understanding.

Because Caleb appreciates coins, there would have an inherent value in the coin itself, although it wouldn’t surprise me to find he was also well aware of its extended monetary value as well.  In fact, I did a little quick research and discovered that my 1953 S mint wheatback penny is worth, *drum roll please*...

$0.03!

Alright, so despite the fact my penny has increased in value by 300%, it still not worth much... but my brief research also confirmed that depending on the year and rarity potential a wheatback penny, very much like mine, could be worth as much as $1,000,000!!   WHAT???? 

Mind. Blown.

Mostly, because, had I picked up, say, the 1914 D mint penny valued at a much less $1500...I still would have thought its worth to be somewhere around, well, one cent.  Its value would have meant little in the wrong hands.

It makes me wonder, contemplate, and become intrigued by the ideas of “value” and “worth”.  What things have little worth or value in the wrong hands but are of infinite value in the hands of those who can hold, because they know, the true worth?   And I think the end of this query almost always ends not with pennies or things or even ideas or causes...but people. 

It’s not really a new contemplation.  I, admittedly, struggle greatly with the idea of my own worth.  That I have some sort of intrinsic value.  And I have to be reminded of Whose hands I’m in and how my value increases exponentially in the eyes of the One who not only made me but desires me. 

And I have to remind others of the same.  If I truly believe they have worth and value (which I do) – then I should be communicating it. 

Sometimes it’s not so much taking a kid by the shoulders and shaking him/her and proclaiming that their lives mean something.  As a “quality time” person myself, I find time and attention go the longest way with the deepest impact to communicate truth.  Especially to the otherwise “forgotten” in a group or situation.  The forgotten will always look a little different for each person, in each individual’s sphere of influence...teens, old people, babies, marginalized, racially diverse, minorities, special needs (to give very broad categories)...

This was reinforced this morning at church. I, in conjunction and assistance to my best friend, have taken on a youth group at her home church.  Started because, well, Liz saw an unmet need.  A need for the teens to feel like they had a place to connect to feel like they mattered.  So, drenched in prayer we attempted uncharted and uncertain waters...asking for six months to see what would happen...

In the last two months, I’ve grown quite attached to my kids.  Our group of teenagers is a gangly bunch – more closely resembling “The Sandlot” in terms of dynamic personalities and gawky misfits than an expected small-town Sunday School class.  And yet...a half hour after church when we were still chatting with teen six and seven it became apparent.  Apparent how much they blossom over the attention.  We see it every week.  After six weeks, our teens are now excited to see us.  And when they come in quiet and withdrawn, it doesn’t often take us long to draw them out.  Over the last month or two we’ve watched our most consistent teens blossom in little ways...off of shoots and branches others had presumed dead and told us not to expect to much from.  I’m going to be honest and tell you that Liz and I are nothing special as youth leaders...but we are intentional.  And we’ve strove to make sure our group knows they’re important to us. We will go back and smirk and laugh a little when other adults approach us with shock and surprise.  “How did you get B to...??”  “How did you know...??”  “Did they really tell you/show you/joke with you about...??”  “We had no idea!” 

And so comes the answer to the reason Liz started youth group in the first place...because though you held them, you couldn’t see their worth or their value.  Sometimes...it just takes the right set of hands.  The right set of eyes.  The right heart.  The right mission.  Sometimes Liz and I just want to scream.  “Don’t you see it!?  How could you miss it?!  They are so ready, so eager, of so much worth and value.  They just need someone to remind them they are worth valuing; that they shouldn’t be tossed to the side or forgotten; that they would go searching if to go missing not disregarded with a ‘bummer’ if it was noticed they were present or gone at all...” 

What are you holding or what do you have the potential to hold with an immeasurable value that you’ve almost disregarded?  What, or who, when placed in the right hands suddenly has to be seen with a completely different perspective and significance? What do you hold that God already values as of immeasurable worth? (The parable of the lost coin seems especially applicable here...) Do you see it holding the same value?  Is it a friend? Acquaintance? Stranger? Is it you?  On any account...now what?

"But now, God's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel: 'Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you.  I've called your name.  You're mine.  When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a roach and a hard place, it won't be a dead end - Because I am God, your personal God, the Holy of Israel, your Savior.  I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, wit rich Cush and Seba thrown in!  That's how much you mean to me!  That's how much I love you!  I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you..."  Isaiah 43:1-4 MSG

The Mystery of Tie-Dye...

I work at a camp.  One of the classes offered is...tiedye.  As an instructor I taught my fair share of this magical and colorful class and now, as health officer, I have taken on the task of untying them, sending them down to laundry, and sorting them once they come back.  This latter task is new for me and interesting...because now I see the shirts both before...and after.

I’ll admit...the “before” picture is always a little intimidating.  T-shirts in bag still dripping in dye of a brownish-orange-green with clearly arbitrary spots of blue and red speckled through in spiral formation...  My gloved hands attempt to squeeze out some of the pooling mess and I think (and sometimes verbalize) a statement of “Really?  Really???  Did you even try at all??”  A couple weeks ago I looked at blotchy, runny, wadded shirt and, as I pulled off the rubber band and tossed it into the bag to go to laundry I, out loud, proclaimed “I’m sorry all of the other kids are going to make fun of you because you have a terribly ugly shirt!”  

I looked for that shirt as I sorted them into their appropriate cabins a couple days later.  I couldn’t find it.  That always happens.  And in so lies the mystery of tiedye...

Sure, when the campers walk around with their shirts on Thursday night, you can see that some are better than others. Some bolder, some with the colors blended better, some impressively executed.  But you can never tell which ones started out the ugliest.  In fact, some of the best...start off as some of the worst.  I know this...as once I untied a disgusting looking shirt that was a complete hot mess and decide to open it completely to examine before placing it inside the bag to be washed.  Some incredible blend of purples and greens and blues and even some remaining yellow left in an impressive spiral design.  Beautiful in terms of tiedye in fact.  Or, the dripping red intestinal looking (before unbinding) bull’s-eye pattern which came out with an awesome purple bursting design with red and pink-white rings.  Who would of thought?  Not me. 

It frustrates me...which I realize is silly.  But it’s just these 5^th and 6^th grade little monsters aren’t even really trying and look at the outcome!  I think about my own tiedye shirts I have made and wear as part of staff.  I think of how meticulously I planned the design and colors.  How carefully I applied the dye and mixed shades.  How adequate but unimpressive my shirts look in the end. Why did I try so hard??  Once last week I pulled open a t-shirt and fantasized about giving a blank, white shirt to a 6^th grader and letting them go to town to create for me one of their disastrous masterpieces. The irony of it all! 

And some part of me can’t help but think this is real life.  A disastrous masterpiece.  And because the “connector” in me loves to see parallels, there are some bits of truth in this tiedye mystery... 

1. Planning doesn’t necessarily dictate outcome.  Don’t get me wrong...you can always tell the kids that put in a lot of time and effort and tried hard.  Their shirts often look great.  But just because it looked great wound up, won’t mean it ends up looking awesome.  It, in fact, doesn’t even guarantee that it will look better than one that started off as a hot mess.  And, perhaps more importantly, just because it looks like a hot mess doesn’t mean it’s destined to be forever ridiculed as ugly.  This can be frustrating.  Everyone knows someone who “does nothing” but whose life seems to be so flawlessly perfect or everything goes their way while those who try and sweat and plan wonder what’s going wrong.  As one who needs control I want to be able to do something with intention and expect a given result.  But not all of life is in my control.  Even if I want it.  Life is still about surrender...

2. “Don’t judge a book(/shirt) by its cover(/prewashed wad)” gets proven yet again.  Beautiful things come from incredibly disastrous things.  I shouldn’t need to be reminded of this.  Much of my life is a testimony to the fact God works in and through the ugly to provide something of incredible splendor...even if I’m slow to realize it.  Sometimes one has to wait and see how things come out in the wash.  Literally. Sometimes stains and scars are the best witness to God’s grace and faithfulness in the midst of life and its storms. 

3. Beauty is the eye of the beholder.  I can smile and nod at the green/brown blotchy result as I tell a student their t-shirt is very unique when they ask me excitedly what I think....all the while trying to hide an inside cringe... And yet he is pumped and proclaiming “this is exactly what I was hoping it would look like!”  ‘A bowel movement?’ I want to question (but don’t of course).  I don’t make others’ shirts for them.  And I don’t live lives for others either.  Although sometimes I want to do both!  But in the end, it’s probably a good thing. I’m not them. I would botch their design.  Every shirt will be unique as the student who designed it; no two shirts will ever be the same... Diversity is beautiful. 

4. You might be surprised by what you find in the folds.  Just this week someone made what was really an innocent comment.  I smiled and nodded and thought “you never would have said that if you really knew me...”  What looks like an exceptional dyed shirt could be merely so-so or less than such...or beautiful on the surface and white underneath – shallow.  And, on the same token, an otherwise ugly shirt can surprise everyone with deep hues and bold designs.  It just depends...on what is revealed when the shirt is unfolded.  People are like that.  And everyone has folds, layers.  Piece hidden beneath the surface.  Everyone encountered has a story.  Some of them will be harder to stomach than one’s own.  

5. If you’re completely clean, you probably did it wrong.  The instructors on our staff who create the best tiedye and arguably the best instructors of it, rarely leave unscathed.  Their hands are dyed...despite gloves.  There are speckles on their face and a blotch on their jeans. (One coworker once proclaimed that she no longer owned a pair of jeans without a hint of tiedye).  Tiedying can be done “respectfully” (as we tell our students) but it is messy!  Intrinsically messy.  The more involved you get, the messier you get.  And you’re going to end up stained.  But it’s almost always worth it.  Life's messy.  And those who "do life" well are often marked by the journey.  There is something said to be living life to it’s fullest...

And there is something to be said for every disastrous masterpiece...