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Getting perspective from a year’s worth of coal

Yeah, anybody invested in the market is probably a lot poorer than a month ago.  My condolences – this is as bad a bear as we’ve had in our modern era. But for a dose of perspective, listen to Marty Schoffstall talk about his grandma:   My grandmother always had a year’s worth of …
By Seth Barnes
Yeah, anybody invested in the market is probably a lot poorer than a month ago.  My condolences – this is as bad a bear as we’ve had in our modern era. But for a dose of perspective, listen to Marty Schoffstall talk about his grandma:
 
My grandmother always had a year’s worth of coal and six month’s worth of canned vegetables in her basement.

She had cash too, but very little of it, since other than taxes and extremely modest utilities she barely spent any.

She (illegally, but who was going to stop her) used to burned her garbage in her backyard.

Once a month she would go with the cans that couldn’t be burned (squashed down) to the sidewalk when the garbage man came round and paid some coins out of her coin purse for him to cart them away.

She went with my aunt to the store and walked to church (every time it opened).

She knitted clothes for everyone and her big luxury was ice cream.

The stock market?  she remembered that it crashed in 1929.
 
I like Jesus’ take on the subject of simple living, and I like Paul’s advice to his protege: “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”*
 
We need to learn the secret of living content no matter our circumstance, as prior generations who lived in a simpler age have.

*1 Timothy 6:6

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