We Need A Lot Of Christmas Now

The plague of our age has resulted in us being fearful and isolated. These feelings are like those held captive, a form of torture. The captors, or those in power, take advantage of these feelings to manipulate and indoctrinate the prisoners.

And the people in power, including leaders of whatever movements are screaming at us at the moment, have used this year to divide us. To divide us by politics, to divide us by race, to divide us by philosophies, to divide us by religion. Even to divide us by whether we wear face coverings in public. To divide us any way they can.

The power brokers do this to acquire more power. If I can manipulate you, then I have control over you. I can make you speak and act just like a ventriloquist dummy. They have done this to me. They have done this to you. Because of the plague, they have been able to do this to all. If you are part of the culture, you have been exposed to it.

The result, is everyone is upset at everyone about everything. Everyone screaming at everyone. Until we are engulfed in a cesspool of hate. The vitriol generated this year is an abomination. It is a pox upon our souls.

Now, it is culturally acceptable to hate each other. People get praised for their hateful statements. Yes, hating is good if it’s for the right reason. “And my reasons are always just, and pure, and moral - just as I am. “And anyway, they started it.” But every derisive statement we make. Every snarky comment. Every proud post. Every nasty tweet - just generates more hate.

The deadliest force this year is not the transmission of a virus, from which most recover, but the spread of hate from one to another, from which we may never recover. There is a vaccine for the virus, and it will eventually cease. The hate? It will rage on. What we need, in the words of Bob Dylan, is a shot of love.

The virus separated us from our fellow humans, and then our gods and captors divided us. Socially-distanced, we are now staying six-feet away. But relationally-distanced, we are six-hundred miles apart.  

And into this sewer of hate, during the fury of the $h!t storms, enters Christmas. You may believe the holiday is ruined this year, but I believe that Christmas exists for a reason, but maybe not the reason you think. I believe that Christmas reminds us every year, how we should live. How we should live and interact with humankind. This message is not just for the faithful but for every person, everywhere. You don’t have to believe the story to believe in the concept. And I am certain the concept is to love our brothers and sisters – not to hate them.

The Christmas message is simple. When we complicate it in any way, we dilute its power. Christmas can be explicated in just one word, “Emmanuel” – which is unfolded in our language as “God is with us”. If God is with us, with us all, then the further we move from each other because of divisions, the further we all move away from God. So you see, the power kings aren’t just separating us from each other; they are separating us from God. We are being fed a steady diet of poison and it is killing us.

What would happen today if God was literally with us – again. Would we receive the gentle rebuke? Or would the voting machines get overthrown? Would the news stations crumble? Would the protest signs be thrown in the fire?

Christmas has arrived at the perfect time this year. If ever we needed God to be with us, it is right now. We need to stop the hate. We need to stop the hate. We need to stop the hate. O come all ye faithful, and you who are not faithful at all, and put a stop to this. Please stop this now.

The uniting message of Christmas is if God is with us and we are with God, then we are with each other. It doesn’t get any simpler or more direct than that. It is time to put away all the garbage you have collected this year. It is time to wash off the filth and mud from the derisive arguments. It’s time, it’s Christmastime, and it’s time to come together. It’s time to extend those tidings of comfort and joy to your friends and your enemies. And for that, we can truly rejoice.     

 

See The Need – Meet The Need (Purposeful Kindness – Part 2)

 If Purposeful Acts of Kindness, as contrasted with random acts of kindness, will be accomplished, we need to see an actual need that we can meet. This requires that we see the needs and be prepared to meet those needs.

In our busy, fast-paced society, with a cultural emphasis on having our needs met versus the needs of others, it isn't easy to see needs in real-time as they occur.

So, here’s the tactic I have used in the past during the Christmas season in order to help me “See The Need”.

1.    Take a $20 bill and designate it your “Meet The Need” money. At that point, it belongs to someone else. You just don’t know who yet.

2.    Place the bill somewhere in your change purse or wallet, but apart from with your other currency. Put it somewhere prominent, where you will see it every time you access your cash or credit cards. Tag it with a paper clip or sticky note if needed.

3.    Give the money to the first person you see in need – A Purposeful Act of Kindness. You have prepared to see the need and meet the need, so there is no need to think much about the situation- just act.

See The Need – Meet The Need

It is best to prepare your $20 bill on Thanksgiving, and a couple of times, I have “reloaded” when I gave the money away the first week of December.

You may ask The Creator to place people with needs in your path if you wish, because now you are prepared to meet them.

I do realize that Christmas 2020 is the worst time to suggest this. This tactic is dependent on getting out into the masses and interacting with groups of “strangers” in multiple settings, which is severely limited this year. But here we are. It’s 2020, and everything is messed up. I know I will need to post this next year, and probably every year, for as long as possible. And I will discuss more options for your $20 at the end of the post.

 Where The $20 Tactic Originated

Several years ago, I was teaching at Indiana Wesleyan University and began that December class by telling the students my Story of the Three Turkeys. (This is a long, but interesting story about how one Christmas I ended up with three turkeys for Christmas dinner. I will tell that story next year when I have more time.) I ended the story by explaining why I give away turkeys to people in need every Christmas and that I had given away two turkeys that year. The students loved the story up to that point, but then their mood changed. 

“Don, you said you received three turkeys in the story, but this year you only gave away two. You owe someone a turkey!” They were insistent, so I promised them I would give away a third turkey.

But I knew this would be difficult to do. I had given two $20 grocery store gift cards to unemployed friends but didn’t know anyone else who needed a turkey. It was already mid-December, and I didn’t have time to get to the store for another gift card. So, I took a $20 bill, stuck it on the outside pocket of my money clip, and vowed to give it to the first person I encountered who needed help.

But no prospects crossed my path the following week, and time was running out. My last day in the office before Christmas break was Thursday, and after that, I would have little contact with anyone.

However, Tuesday morning Denette sent out an email asking people in the office to donate money for a local family with five kids whose house and Christmas gifts had been destroyed by fire a couple of days earlier.

And that was it! That was the need I was looking for! However, I had work that required my immediate attention, so I didn’t make it over to Denette’s desk until late in the day. She got out her collection envelope and I handed her the $20. She looked down at the eight dollar bills that had been donated, a meager sum considering the office had over 200 workers, and the fire's story had been prominent in the news.

 “I don’t have enough change for you,” she lamented, not raising her head.

“No, keep it all,” I said.

She quickly raises her head, and with a look of gratitude I will never forget, says, “Really?”  I nod my head; she thanks me, and I leave.

And that’s when the Christmas happens, people.

And Now, For The Rest Of The Story

But there’s more to this story. You may enjoy it – or you may not, but I gotta tell it, regardless.

That night, a few hours after donating that $20, I was at a holiday poker game with a dozen or so guys from work. It was a friendly, fun time, with a modest $20 buy-in. I haven’t played much poker, but this was by far my most bizarre game. My luck was atrocious early in the match. I should have been the first player eliminated after only a half-hour of play, but somehow, I was able to survive through tremendous luck.

My fortunes then improved a little, but an hour later, I should have been eliminated a second time but again got extremely lucky and survived. I was then able to scratch and claw back into contention. And then I won a big, essential pot that eliminated two players and left me heads up, but against a player with a massive stack of chips. He should have squashed me like a bug. But he was inexperienced and made mistake after mistake. He had several opportunities to win the match, but my chip stack kept growing because he was inept. It was almost like he wanted to lose, and finally, he made so many mistakes that they handed me over $200 when I won the match.

It was Wednesday morning when I was back at work when I fully contemplated just what had happened the previous evening. The odds of me winning that match after staving off elimination twice and defeating a much better-funded opponent at the end were minuscule. I calculated my chance of winning that match based on the challenges I faced at about 1-in-four million. But in an eight-hour span, I hand over $20 to Denette and someone hands me back around $220. I’m not entirely sure just what  happened that day. It could have been a coincidence, and yet …..

Addendum

Please put the $20 in your wallet and be ready to See The Need. If you still have the money on Christmas Eve due to limited mobility/social distancing, donate it to the Salvation Army or local food bank.

I have made the decision to put a designated $20 bill in