Come on, people…get a grip!

As I write this, it’s a couple hours into “Cyber Monday,” the great on-line shop-a-looza that follows Black Friday and (something new this year!) Black Saturday…you know, your last chance to shave a few bucks off the perfect gifts for your loved ones, office mates, classmates and teachers…whomever among your circle of acquaintances needs “gifting”…until the next last chance to save money on the perfect gifts for the holidays.

Yes, THE HOLIDAYS are officially here, and outside of shopping, you know what that means—spreading love and cheer and goodwill to all. It means activities like baking cookies, participating in gift exchanges and “giving” trees, dropping a few dollars into the red buckets outside stores, and of course pepper-spraying the person ahead of you in line so you can ensure you’ll get your hands on the latest must-have toy, gizmo…whatever.

If you’re reading a touch of cynicism in my words this morning, you’d be right! And it’s not new either. It’s an affliction that strikes me every year about this time, and has ever since I saw a television commercial a few years back that claimed the holidays were “all about giving.” Well, not for me. For me “the holidays” means a four-week period set aside to await the celebration of a child’s birth, a birth that (to me) signifies hope for the world. But that message was long ago coopted by ad agencies and retailers and turned into a reason for people to line up outside of stores in the middle of the night and crush anyone who might impede their path to the sales racks.

Now, believe me, I love a deal as much as everyone else. I clip coupons, I subscribe to savings publications and newsletters, and I shop sales. I love buying gifts for my loved ones too, and I love watching their faces as they unwrap those gifts. But this year seems to be even nuttier than past years, with stores opening before the hours of Thanksgiving had fully ticked down. (Really? Do stores really need to open up so early that their employees have to push themselves off the couch, where they might be relaxing with family and loved ones, to go ring up sales for people who can’t wait for the next day?) I almost wish I could turn that clock ahead to when the feeding frenzy of shopping and “deals” has passed. Almost.

I hesitate because if I skip the craziness of the shopping season, I have to also skip the joy and wonder that is Christmas. I’ll have to skip some of my favorite things to do. Things like putting up decorations that my husband and I have collected over the years, trinkets and mementos of our children’s growing years,  and even a few from our own childhood, instant and treasured memories of friends and family, some of whom are long gone. It would mean missing singing along with favorite Christmas carols on the radio (my voice on full volume and my windows rolled fully up!), and trips to the nursery in search of the perfect Christmas tree.  (Okay, I wouldn’t mind skipping the annual ritual of untangling the lights, but sometimes you have to take the bad with the good!) I’d have to miss out on special parties with friends from work and special worship music at church. And I’d have to miss reading those beloved scripture passages that tell of that baby’s birth.

I know some don’t want to hear or read this. Some want to continue to tell themselves Christmas is all about “giving,” and finding the perfect gift for their children, loved ones and co-workers. After all, didn’t the Wise Men bring gifts to the Christ child? I know too that people who don’t celebrate Christmas enjoy “the holidays” as well, and I’m glad for that. I’m glad that there’s a season where we at least pretend to really care about each other. And I’m glad that the crazy people in the malls are the exception, not the rule.

So my hope for you, and for me, as we’re scouring the on-line deals on this Great Cyber Monday, or out among the throngs pushing their way through the malls, that each of us will catch a glimpse of, and maybe share, the spirit of Christmas. I hope that we can tamp down on our natural impatience as we  wait on hold for the next customer service agent, or fight mall traffic, and maybe even let someone else have that parking space near the door. I hope we can smile at each other as we we’re standing in long lines at the register.  And I hope, as we subconsciously process the commercial messages of these next four weeks, that we can shed the stress of too much shopping, too much baking and too many people on our “must buy for” lists and hang on to that sense of joy and anticipation that the angels sang about more than two thousand years ago.

Happy “holidays,” everyone.

 

It’s Labor Day ~ Do you labor for love or money?

When my children were in elementary school, our school district had a program known as the “Gifted and Talented Program,” or “G&T” for short. If your child was lucky enough to be one of the chosen, he or she would have access to special programs that would not only enlighten but challenge, to help prepare the child for life. So when my older son was selected for testing, I was ecstatic, certain he would be plucked from the pedestrian sameness of the “regular” classroom and elevated to the ranks of one of “the gifted.”

But when that paper came home from school announcing he had not met the program’s requirements, I was compelled to call the director of the program, certain she had erred in her judgment. “My son gets consistent top grades, in every class, and has since kindergarten,” I said, trying to keep the shriek that was cluttering my head from inflecting my voice. I was an adult, after all. I could discuss this woman’s obvious lack of vision without stooping to childish jibes or name-calling. I only wish she had been as caring in her remarks to me.

“Your child is certainly bright,” she said in this bored tone, as if she’d been repeating the same remark to every other rejected child’s parent. “But he’s not gifted.”

If any reading this are mothers, you know the kind of rage that phrase will elicit, and I was no exception. Still, I kept my cool.  “Excuse me?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean his verbal skills are extraordinary, but the math skills aren’t at a level which would enable him to keep up in this program. We want to challenge the children, not set them up for failure.”

Okay, I knew that language was his strength and he had to work a bit in math — she had me there — but I was still angry, and for one of the few times in my life I didn’t bite my tongue, didn’t try to stabilize the rocking boat.

“I understand that he might not be appropriate for your program,” I said, my voice trembling with the disgust I felt for this woman, this so-called educator whose self-righteous whims might make or break a child’s school career. “But you’re so wrong about him. He is gifted. In fact, every child is gifted in one way or another, and it appalls me that you, the director of a public education program, hold such a view.”

By now my heart was hammering against my chest, and my breathing was jerking and spiking to the point I feared I would start hyperventilating, so I slammed the phone back into its cradle and tried to forget about that horrible woman and her lame “G&T” program. I never spoke to her again, never even considered allowing my younger son to be tested for the program. And of course they both did fine, each excelling in areas where their strengths lay, areas where each was gifted.

And I do believe that. My defense of my child, of all children, hadn’t been empty rhetoric. I do believe that each child born is gifted with something that can (and should) be used to better the world. I believe God made us that way. Some are born leaders, skilled at designing long-term strategies, while others are skilled at putting those strategies into action. Some are born with the ability to sing, or to pull sounds from instruments that make us think of the heavens. Others can translate what they see before them into works of art that capture humanity, or nature, in perfect truth, the same way mathematicians can create reason out of random numbers. Some are skilled healers, others skilled orators who can argue for justice. Our gifts and abilities are many but share one common denominator: Each is a vital cog that brings order and happiness to this machine we call the world.

To me, the hard part isn’t necessarily figuring out what each person’s gift is (I believe it’s what creates that passion in each soul), it’s figuring out how to use the gift on a daily basis. It’s even more difficult to determine how to make a living at it. That’s the goal I dreamed for my children: that each would be able to make an honest living at whatever fulfills that passion in his soul. It’s a lofty dream, I know, one that few ever attain. But in my view, it’s the what God and nature intended, and it’s what I want for my children, and myself.

Others, like my sister, are much more  pragmatic. While I’ve been known to whine over the years about being bored in one job or another (some of which paid quite well), feeling unfulfilled and unchallenged, she has counseled to suck it up, count your blessings and make as much money as possible so you can afford to do what you love in your down time.

She makes a good point, but I still can’t help but think that if you’re doing what you love, you don’t see each day as an endurance test to pass the time until the five o’clock whistle blows. So I wonder, on a day like today, Labor Day, a day we set aside to celebrate the efforts and ingenuity of the American worker, how do you feel? How many are content to toil away in jobs that leave them unfulfilled but pay well, saving their “gifts” for simple avocation or fun? And how many have taken that leap of faith, thrown worries of monies to the wind, and set their goals on fulfilling nature’s promise by using those gifts every day?

I’m fortunate that I have now a job which allows me to use my passion, at least within the context of my responsibilities, but what about you? Do you labor for money, or love?