check this out...

 Today I received a reorder of checks in the mail.  In this order are 60 checks, which will probably last me through most of 2025.  I'm laughing a little at this because I can remember when checks came in boxes of 200 or so per box (in nice little tablets of 25 of course) and were ordered in batches of 400 to 800 at a time.  Everything was paid for by check (or cash of course).  These days utility bills, mortgages, credit card bills, car payments, taxes, whatever you may owe, can all be paid "on line."  You simply transfer money from your checking account to whichever bills you are paying.  Or, to make it even simpler, you can set up automatic payments and you don't have to lift a finger.  Sometimes I wonder if there is any real money there at all of if it's just numbers adding and subtracting as the weeks and months go by.  Of course, I'm in that lovely stage of my life, retirement, where money just shows up in my bank account every month.  When I was in college, so many years ago that BSU was still Ball State Teachers College (it became a  university in my senior year) we freshmen were required to take a class called Personal Finance where we were taught, among other things, the correct way to fill out a check, and the correct way to balance your checkbook.  When was the last time you balanced a check book?  Things have come so far that I don't even write a check for my church donations anymore.  It simply comes out of my savings account once a month.  It does make me a little self conscious in church when they pass the collection plate and I don't put anything in.  Of course, I'm not the only one.  I would guess that more than half of our congregation members are giving on line these days.  I sometimes wonder though how it looks to people live streaming the service.  They probably think "Wow, people in that church sure don't give very much."  Sometimes I wish that we had little signs on sticks saying something like "I give on line" that we could wave at the usher as he or she goes by. These would be similar to, but maybe smaller than, the old fashioned fans supplied by funeral homes for those hot summer Sundays before air conditioning.  They had a balsa wood handle and  a picture of Jesus on one side and an ad for the funeral home on the other.  If you remember those fans you are part of my generation for sure.  So if you actually are still writing checks for some things it's ok.  Why do you think I needed to order sixty more?