Note & Comment 10/26/07

Yes, there is a Cut n’ Shoot, Texas. It lies along hgwy 105 some 9 miles East of Conroe, the County Seat of Montgomery County. We passed through Cut n’ Shoot yesterday morning on our way to The Cheesemakers, Inc cheese factory. That is about 2 miles further east just off 105 on Walker road.

Just how a cheese factory got to Texas is the end of a series of circumstances which started because a U of Texas engineering graduate saw a need, filled it, and ended selling a machine to a cheese factory in Kiel, Wisconsin. He installed it and remained around several days to make sure it worked as it should and all the glitches were worked out. What to do meanwhile. Sightseeing in Kiel was rather limited, so he, out of boredom, attended an auction of a cheese factory, made a bid, found it was the only bid, and owned a cheese factory. To pay for it he called his grandmother, she was a sort of Warren Buffet in the stock market, made money, and offered her two grandsons if the need ever arose, to supply the funds. So he called, she wired the funds, and he bought the factory, and then he enrolled in cheese making class at Wisconsin U, then loaded his factory on 3 semi trucks, hauled it to Texas, and erected it on a property he owned near Cut n’ Shoot.

The reason for this telling is that the Senior Basic Group from Living Word toured that plant yesterday. It was an outing long planned, and turned into one of those days that slow, relaxing, satisfying, and easily classified as happy.

Funny, isn’t it. How we long to be happy. For many, the chase for happiness becomes the reason for their very existence, and the more they plan to be happy, the more it eludes them. Why, Paul said it in one sentence, “Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content”.1 Tim. 6,8. And the letter to the Hebrews writes, “Be content with such things as you have, for He has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you”. Heb 13,5. And that should be enough.

We often forget that happiness is usually a by product. It happens while we are busy with life, doing what lies before us. When such a day ends, as did yesterday, we really have the feeling of well being. And it is there. Unplanned, just happened.

Thank God for such times.

GPD 10/26/07