The school holidays are a magical time. Day after day with little to do, it is interesting to see how the kids choose to fill up their time. By the end of the first week the novelty of being home had worn off. All sorts of projects had been begun, each with various degrees of success. Everything from building tree houses, sewing or knitting projects, and newly, the task of working out some basic electronics. With all this out of the way our 8 year old was seeking some new action.
And then, a distant memory of school holidays from months ago returned and my oldest boy had the bright idea to set up a lemonade stand out the front of our house. He’d seen a neighbour boy do the same some months ago, selling iced tea that he had brewed, and was impressed with the fact that people were giving him actual money in exchange for what was effectively a cold cup of lightly flavoured water. He wanted in.
He’d floated the idea with his mother and I earlier in the week, and set to work preparing things. His mum spent considerable time with him planning out the stall, testing recipes and ensuring that he had everything he needed. He even enlisted the help of his more artistically minded older sister to prepare what was a pretty impressive sign to advertise this initiative.
Lemons from our backyard tree were picked and juiced, and an unseemly amount of sugar was added to a mixture of the lemon juice and (not enough) water and set to the boil. It was left to cool and then put in the fridge overnight. It was ready. Long discussions ensued concerning the optimal price point for a cup. $0.20? $0.50? Probably not enough. Should it be $1 or $2? Eventually we settled for $2. Mum was concerned that this was extortionate, or at least not a fair representation of actual value. Probably true. But Dad reminded her that a glass of lemonade in a pub might cost as much as $7-8, and that wouldn’t be ‘handmade with love’ as the sign assured us (he also pointed out that the value of the Aussie dollar is approaching that of monopoly money). $2 it would be.
Eventually Saturday rolled around, and a good deal of the morning was spent setting up the stall. The kids had decided that their stall would open around 1pm. Chairs and tables were dragged out to the street verge, a beach umbrella was erected, a tablecloth was set out, and the esky, full of ice was brought out. Finally, the lemon cordial was processed out in jugs purchased especially for the occasion.
Business was slow to start. We don’t live on a busy street, which is usually is a good thing, but in this instance it nearly spelled the end of the project. Those first 8min or so with no cars driving by nearly saw the kids give up. But eventually, their first customer arrived. It was soon evident that all discussions concerning the price of this product had been completely unnecessary.
The first punter drove by in what was a fairly beat up old muscle car. Seeing the stall the driver abruptly slammed on the brakes, threw the car in reverse, drove back to the stand, and turned off the ignition – parking his heap in the middle of the road. I was sitting on the couch just outside our front door, which is a ways back from the street, eager to see how the kids would engage this stranger who’d decided to give them their custom, but I did not want to interfere.
Emerging from the vehicle was a big bloke. To be honest, if I’d seen him in another context, I would have been on my guard, or at least sought to put myself between him and my kids – he was pretty rough looking. But as he approached the kids he was brandishing a broad smile and was generous in his demeanour, asking about the lemonade, how it was made, and how long they’d been at their trade. The kids politely answered his questions, if somewhat a little nervously, as they poured him a cup. Reaching for his wallet, the man pulled out an orange bill, and told them to “keep the change”. $20!
Not knowing what to do, the kids simply said ‘thank you’, and the bloke walked back to his car, profusely heaping praise on the kids for their ‘very tasty’ drink.
To say that the kids were stoked would be an understatement. But they had little time to dwell on it. The customers were now coming fairly consistently. Over about 1.5hrs the children poured about 15 cups of lemonade and took over $115(!) – pretty well all profit. As I watched these exchanges emerge from a distance, I was struck with the sheer delight with which their customers engaged the kids. Of about 12 or customers only one person offered them the asking price for their cup of lemonade, 2 or 3 people simply stopped and got out offering the kids the coins that had collected in the ash trays of their cars over the preceding months, saying that they didn’t want any lemonade, but wanting to ‘encourage industry’.
I shouldn’t really have been surprised, but what was so striking over the course of those two short hours or so was the fact that so many people just took absolute delight in being kind and generous to my children. It is completely clear to me that had I set up such a stand on my front lawn and staffed it by myself, with the same homemade beverage and the same homemade sign, that I would have earned nothing at all, excepting of course some very strange looks from the same people who stopped to engage with my kids. Nobody would have approached me, let alone purchased anything. In fact, I would not be surprised if someone had called the neighbourhood security to come and check on me.
Why is it that adults take such delight in being generous to children? I don’t purport to have any one definitive answer, but there is something honest and pure about childhood that seems to welcome interaction. Children, even the rascals amongst them, are not likely to manipulate others in a nefarious manner, but more than this, there is an openness in children, and a kind of natural trust that they exhibit which I suspect reminds adults of how they would rather be before the world. Perhaps this stance of wonder, and of trust is more natural than the posture of self-defence that us adults have learned to adopt. (This might also be why we are so enraged when we see children being injured or taken advantage of by adults – and why Jesus speaks of mill-stones and deep water being a better fate for those who injure one of ‘these little ones’).
In their efforts with the lemonade stand my children had engaged in their work in a way that was full of hope and trust in the fact that people, adults, would be kind and gracious to them. And the very act of their setting up shop on the street verge was the occasion for those who drove by and decided to stop to practice this kindness and gratuitousness. In stopping and offering the kids their custom, and in the overly gracious manner with which these customers engaged, those adults had a small experience of joy, joy that came from offering something to my kids – in a small way they were able to image something of God, God who gives in a completely gratuitous manner, and who delights in the very little which is offered back to Him. These adults were able to demonstrate something of reality as it truly is, not as corrupted by fallen experiences jealousies and hurt, but of the wonder of being as true, and good, and beautiful.
The lesson of the lemonade stand, for me, then is the same lesson that Jesus offered when he invited us to become like little children. To trust in, and thus elicit the generosity of others.
