Inventory

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At work, we have inventory today. It takes the company a couple of days to do inventory, but only one day for my plant. We do epoxy resin counter tops and table tops as well as epoxy resin fume hood liner panels. Both of these products have a couple iterations in colors or qualities. On top of this, we process our own materials. We turn raw ground silica, resin, hardeners, pigments, etc. into unfinished slabs in a process I control separately from our fabrication line. We also cut miscellaneous glass panes for our metal and wood plants.

Note: I’m typing in English and listening to music in Spanish. A man just walked into my office and asked a question in English and I responded in Spanish… !?!?!? …I didn’t think I knew Spanish well enough to be bilingual. Tal es vida.
Back to my post…

Therefore, I manage multiple quasi-independent product lines. However, I’ve managed to lobby for policies in the past that make our inventory so easy a caveman… er, uh, a therapist… er, uh, a gecko could do it. Sometimes I love my job.

My mind is weird – or “wired” differently. Every several months or couple of years it wants to inventory its contents. This means that I have to spend a couple of relatively sleepless weeks while it churns away reminding me of everything I remember. It did this recently. It’s through for now, thank goodness. This is what spawned some of my recent reminiscent posts.

Every Thursday night I meet with a few men. We may have a time of Bible study, theological debate or some such, but we often do an “examination of conscience”, or what could be understood as a “spiritual inventory”. We also often bemoan the fact that there are always some areas of our spiritual life where we could improve. Being Thursday, that’s where I’ll be tonight.

It’s good business to inventory thoroughly. You have to inventory because it’s too inefficient to maintain a perfect inventory on a day-to-day basis. You do the best you can as you go along, but circumstances may cause inaccuracies over time. So it is wise to stop occasionally and get an accurate count of your inventory. You mark down the variances, resolve to do better and get on with business. Likewise, it’s good to inventory yourself spiritually. The fruits of the spirit are what should motivate us. We need to ask if our motivations are true to the Spirit of God. The checklist we use has ten items in three categories. The three categories are Piety (Mat 11:28), Study (John 8:31) and Action (John 20:31).

Piety

1. With what spiritual aids have you nourished your vital union with Christ this week? Examples:

Congregational Worship/Communion

Morning Offering/Evening Thanks

Devotions, Meditation and Prayer

Examination of Conscience

Altar/Chapel Visit

Family Prayer

Blessing Before Meals

Spiritual Direction

Other

2. What was the Moment you felt closest to Christ?
3. What is your plan for next week to deepen your piety?

Study

4. What have you studied this week to better understand Jesus Christ and his mystical body, the church?

Adult Education Class of Congregation

Bible Study Course

Private Bible Study

Bible Commentaries

Books on the Christian Faith & Theology

Christian Periodicals

Pastor Guided Reading

Other

5. What was the most helpful Spiritual insight from your study?
6. What will be your plan for next week to enrich your study?

Action

7. What have you done this week to share Christ with the world so that others might know his saving love?

How have you witnessed to the gospel in:

Family

Profession

Workplace

Total environment

In what way were you successful?

In what way were you disappointed?

8. What have you done to bear the burdens of others in obedience to Christ?
9. What was the moment of your most burning witness? Most sacrificial service?
10. What is your plan for next week to enlarge your witness and service?

These questions are not comprehensive, and they should not be used legalistically, but they do help to keep us on track.

By the way, with this post, that lovely picture of Ised moves down. I was enjoying seeing her picture whenever I visited my page. The color in the background is about the same color we painted the kitchen (Behr called it “Williamsburg Blue”) along with green trim and accents. It’s one of my favorite colors. Don’t anyone tell my wife, though: I pick on her for having purple as a favorite color.