18 Morton Mini Donuts

In our family, we have a saying that goes back to the early 1970s:
“18 Morton Mini Donuts.”
Everyone in my family of origin and many of the in-laws and grandchildren know what it means when we say it. 🙂

If I’m anything, I’m a child of the 70s. I turned 8 in 1970, and 18 in 1980. I spent my older childhood, teens, and young adult life in the 1970s. It was a grand time. Boxed meals were a thing. We ate what astronauts ate and drank what they drank. Tang, powdered food products, and the like were our delights.

One day, our mother scored, astronaut-wise. She brought in the mother lode, a box of deliciousness that became our breakfast bliss, our afternoon snack sensation, our source of all things good and right in this world. We met 18 Morton Mini Donuts.

Our mother was a stickler for everything being even. There were three of us kids, and when treats were divided, they were divided by three. We ate our portion. We knew we only had one-third of whatever there was, be it a can of Pringles, a Whitman’s Sampler, or the coveted 18 Morton Mini Donuts. She was looking out for us, making sure we each had part of the goodness and teaching us to be sure everybody shared in that goodness. We even figured out how to share those 18 Morton Mini Donuts with spend-the-night friends (divide by 4!). Nobody got left out.

There were three of us and 18 donuts. We each got 6. We learned very early, even before Morton entered our lives, how each of us would approach the dividing of tasty treats. As for the donuts, Lisa ate 2-3 of her 6 donuts for breakfast and saved 3-4 for afternoon snack. I ate 3-4 and had 2-3 left for snack. Buddy gobbled up all 6 as soon as they hit the table and had a total of ZERO for snack. After school, he cried for us to share with him. He begged. He stared while we ate. I NEVER shared. (Learn your lesson, Buddy! Don’t gobble all 6 in the morning. Eat a piece of toast if you’re still hungry, for Pete’s sake.) Lisa would eat one and listen to him whine. But it never failed. She gave him at least one of her share. She was always a giver (or at least a give-in-er).

I applied the “18 Morton Mini Donuts” truth as an adult. I mean, it served me well as a child. Why wouldn’t it work? I almost always got my fair share. I taught it to my boys, faithfully passing on this practice, this truth, to at least one of my sons (The jury is still out on the younger–he ate EVERYBODY’S Christmas cookies and candy one year.).

My husband was not raised in this manner. There were 10 kids in his family. It was every man for himself. The corner piece of cornbread went to the fastest, fleetest of them. There was no saving anything for later because with 12+ eating, there usually wasn’t anything to leave for later. Needless to say, I had to train him up in the way he should go and hope that he would take heed to the way and the truth. There have been some trying times in our marriage and childrearing, and I dare say “18 Morton Mini Donuts” moments were some of the most troublesome. My boys did learn, for the most part, to share with each other. We even joke about it now when we are cutting brownies or opening a package of cookies. How many are there? Can it be divided evenly between the people in the house? “18 Morton Mini Donuts!” we say.

“My fair share” has not always served me well. My sense of justice has often outweighed other traits that I should have tried to develop. For one, I’ve had to really work at being generous. It didn’t come naturally to me. And I’ve had to work at being compassionate, so much so that when I scored 2/20 on a compassion scale I actually cheered because I had DOUBLED my earlier score (true story). No teacher ever wrote, “Plays well with others” on my report card.

I’ll be honest, it took me years to see the blessing of having a strong sense of justice, to look at the 18 Morton Mini Donuts principle I lived by as a good thing. It seemed like a weakness. It caused a lot of angst in me and in others when they came up against it.

A kind friend and wise spiritual mother to me saw beyond what I saw as weakness. One day she said, “Your greatest weakness is your greatest strength misused.”
Read that again. Say it slowly to yourself.
So, my strong sense of justice wasn’t the character flaw I’d always thought it was after all. It was a strength I hadn’t learned how to use for God’s glory and the good of those around me.

When I used it wisely, when it was tempered by the Holy Spirit, my sense of justice wasn’t a bad thing. I took some time to recall occasions when I hadn’t misused it. It required real pondering because my mind screamed all the ways I’d misused it.
–As a kid, I could keep score, remember the rules, be the referee, and get in there with my friends to settle those ugly girl fights that came along.
–As a teacher, I knew how to sit down with middle school girls who were going at it and help them figure out what all the fuss was about (no small task with a middle school girl).
–I taught Ben how to negotiate with Jesse and explained to Jesse why he needed to play Ben’s game sometimes, even when he didn’t want to.

I appreciate other people’s compassion, empathy, and mercy. Those people teach me to give myself grace, give myself time to grow. They fill in gaps with their gifts that I don’t have. AND as they use their gifts well, they help me appreciate my sense of justice.

“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other…. All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 27 NLT

Things I Asked Myself:
–What strengths do you possess that benefit others? Do you see them as gifts?Do you see the benefit of them for others’ good and God’s glory?
—Do you use your “greatest strengths” well? Do you give yourself grace to grow when you misuse your gifts?
–When you’re out of your 6 Morton Mini Donuts, aren’t you glad there is a generous person? When you need someone to divide things evenly, making sure everyone has a share in the goodness, aren’t you glad there’s a person with a strong sense of justice?
–When you need to see gifts in yourself that only look like weaknesses, aren’t you glad there’s someone who comes alongside you to lovingly show you that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14)?

Most days, I’m thankful for my sense of justice. I’m definitely thankful God’s design for each of us is unique and we aren’t all the same. I’ll leave it to you to ponder what the world would be like with a bunch of mini-Dede’s. 😉

“18 Morton Mini Donuts!”
Who knew?