Vol.XIV No.I Pg.8
March 1977

Stuff About Things

Robert F. Turner

Did your string ball get the mumps? Is your spool tractor all gummed up? Are the notches worn on your whooeee slick so that the propeller no longer turns? Take heart'. I'm going to tell you how to make a "Whizzer:"

You'll need a large button, one inch diameter or better; and a cord, about thirty inches long-- strong, but small enough to go through the button holes. Put both ends through holes in the button, using diagonal openings if it is a four-holer. Tie the ends of the cord together. Pull equal amounts of cord to either side of the button, and loop over three or four fingers on each hand to operate, swing the button until it is wound up as tight as the brotherhood. Then, pull your hands apart so that tension on the string will unwind the button rapidly. With a little practice one can "give in" just a bit, as the cord straightens, and its speed will wind it in the opposite direction. Pull again — and again — and you will make the button turn, and turn; whiz and whiz; and you will have a "Whizzer."

Reaction is not, in itself, a bad thing. In fact, good soldiers are supposed to react to enemy action — to bolster defense at the point of attack, and to counterattack. But God's army also has positive goals, and our main thrust should be in their attainment. Unlike the "Whizzer" whose total motion is one of reaction, we should he busily driving toward these goals regardless of what others do or say.

The Whizzer spins only when tension motivates a counter action. In the absence of such opposition it remains at dead center — dead. And some times a challenge to comfortable status quo is the only thing that can cause a church to stir. Then, one suspects the action is defense of pride rather than a deep-seated desire to serve the Lord. Reactions that are nothing more than that, usually result in a pendulum-type swing to some extreme opposite.

The solution is not to cease to react to error, but to smother error in a constant, concerted drive to do God's bidding at all times. If our conscious goal is Heaven, and we move steadily forward, in season and out of season, we will be engaged in much more than a reaction program. We will not wait for crack-pot notions in some distant corner to determine our direction. We will not be "Whizzers" that spin, but go nowhere.