Candy friends

At church recently, my children discovered the joy of being lucky. Ethan had managed to win the grand prize in some drawing, which turned out to be a light-up foam rocket launcher, a toy all the children coveted deeply. Well, we brought it home, but there was a problem. For whatever reason, daddy was the only one who could figure out how to pump it up and launch it properly and his adeptness was non-transferable to mommy or the boys. So, mommy decided to take Ethan with her to Target the next day and return it for something he would enjoy more and could actually use.

His purchase of choice? As much junk food as possible. Kit-Kats, cinnamon swirl buns, chocolate snack donuts, single-serve packets of instant pink lemonade, glo-sticks, and of course cinnamon chapstick. It was quite a haul. What I found just as fascinating as the selection, however, was the method of enjoyment. It was all gone within the day. He would eat some, and he would share some with his brothers. Then he would eat some more, and share some more with his brothers. In fact, he seemed to enjoy being the big man around the house with goodies to dole out just as much as he enjoyed eating them himself.

I must admit, my first reactions to all this were sort of negative. I was a bit irked that he had liquidated a physical and ongoing asset (a toy) into food rather than another tangible entertainment. Then I was a bit more irked when he just consumed it all in such a short period of time rather than parceling out the pleasure at least over a few days. And finally, I thought it was weird the way he seemed to be almost purchasing affection from the other boys with his favors, as perhaps the insecure second-born is prone to do. The prudent and self-sufficient adult in me was suffering a kind of embodied repudiation of my economic identity.

But in an instant, I reframed my entire outlook. Ethan was throwing a party, and he was just enjoying the chance to be a rich man inviting his best friends to his banquet of unhealthy delicacies. And it reminded me instantly of a Bible verse which I misunderstood for years. Jesus tells his disciples to “make friends with unrighteous money,” which does not mean to become money’s friend, but to use money to make friends, a decided upgrade in value. And when you are a child living in a world where you trust your daddy to always takes care of the important stuff so implicitly that you don’t even have to think about planning for tomorrow, this is precisely the way you misspend a surplus…in love on people.