Peg puts a sheet of paper in the folding machine and we both stand back. She presses the green button and the paper shoots into the folder, gently emerging in a perfect trifold.
Wow, I say. We put the other 49 sheets in there. They are all folded in about five seconds.
Wow, I say again. That thing means business. I would be folding things all the time if I were in here every day, just to watch.
Yeah. Gibbi and I love to watch it fold stuff.
We are preparing for the second annual Body and Soul Health Expo, to be held September 29th. Because it's the second one and Peg saved everything from the first one, we're miles ahead of where we were at this time last year. It's been so smooth, planning this one: quick meetings, easy fundraising, easy recruiting of volunteers.
There are some things we need help on. We ran out of toner for the copy machine and both instinctively know better than to try to replace the cartridge in Helen's or Gibbi's absence: we would emerge from the effort covered in indelible black powder, and would still be unable to run anything off. The simple provision of ink seems to me to lag behind other office technology: it's seldom simple, and it's fraught with danger to one's clothing.
And then we need a Yoga teacher. And somebody from Weight Watchers. And we need to confirm the attendance of the smoking cessation person, and to talk the man at the health food store into providing a yummy-looking display of his wares at the entrance. But, one by one, these things are all falling into place. And we still have five weeks to go.
A big event like this health fair is an immense task of work and planning that involves lots of people. It may be huge, but it is accomplished little by little. In that, it is just like a healthy life, like any achievement. You don't just get a healthy life, boom! You stack the components of one, piece by piece, and a healthy life grows. You start out small and grow; you don't start out big and shrink. We don't do big things. We just do groups of little things, one by one. Few things are more essential to success of any kind than recognizing this fact.
We will get the ink cartridge replaced, by somebody who won't spill black toner ink all over the office carpet. We will find a yoga teacher or two for the 29th. If the health food man doesn't see things our way, we'll do what we did last year and have a huge pile of yummy apples at the entrance, instead. Little by little, we will build our health fair until it happens, big and beautiful, on the 29th of September. Little by little, the way we build every good thing in our lives.
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The Body and Soul Health Fair runs from 9-4 at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Metuchen, NJ, on Saturday, September 29th. Barbara Crafton will be keynote speaker in the afternoon; healing touch practitioner Catherine Durand will speak in the morning. St. Luke's is at the corner of Rt 27 and Oak Avenue in Metuchen, exit 131 of the Garden State Parkway or Exit 10 of the New Jersey Turnpike. Call 732-548-4308, ext 10, or visit www.stlukes17.org.
Also at St. Luke's on Saturday, November 3rd, a Quiet Day with Barbara Crafton: "Too Busy to Pray? Life in the Spirit for Busy People," 9am-3pm. A $20 registration fee includes your lunch. Reservations required; call 732-548-4308, ext 10.
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