A BIBLICAL MATH LESSON

You are all familiar with the biblical story of Noah.  What might not be known is the background story of that event that was not fully recounted in the scriptures:

The humble man, Noah, was commanded to build an ark.  Then, he was to gather the animals in pairs and guide them onto the ark.  There, according to the story, were great floods but the animals survived until the waters receded and the ark came to rest on solid ground.  Noah was then commanded to release the animals with the instructions to go out and multiply.

Being a good manager, Noah took his job seriously.  After what he considered to be sufficient time, Noah went to check up on the animals.  Sure enough, the rabbits already had a family, the elephants were in a family way and so on.  Then he came across two snakes and asked: "Where are your young?"  The snakes said they had none.  "But", said Noah somewhat disgustedly, "You were instructed to go out and multiply!!"  "We can't", replied the snakes. "We're adders."

"Well, that makes no difference," retorted Noah.  "You were commanded to multiply, and by jing, (an uncommon biblical expression) I'm going to see that you do it.  You have a year to follow the command."

A year later, Noah found the snakes and learned they still had no young.  "OK, I'll take care of this", he huffed.  Thereby, he went out and cut down a large tree and fashioned the trunk into a bench.  Then he gathered up the snakes and placed them on the bench saying: (are you ready for this???).  "There, even adders can multiply on a log table!!!".

So, maybe the story is apocryphal.  But it still applies to our Stanwood/Camano Island Rotary.  Because when we add a member, the work and efforts of that person will multiply what our club can accomplish.  Therefore, the command is to go out, add new members and multiply the impact of our club.

We have been blessed with the recent addition of members bringing out total membership to 43 with one more to be added at the next meeting.  Already, we have seen the terrific benefits that have come from multiplying by our addition.  Let's keep going.  The community has many quality persons who would benefit from associating with us.  All we need to do is recognize them and invite them to gather with us on Wednesdays at noon.

Dave's dad and mother shared philosophy on a regular basis.  It was not Socratic or any other of the learned philosophies about which some of us studied in school.  Rather, the philosophy was home-spun.  One particular "truism" the loving parents emphasized was that: "Many hands make light the work."  How true!  The more of us who work in Rotary causes, the more gets done and the less burden members feel.

Happy Holidays to all,

JoAnn and Dave