Why I Say “Merry Christmas”

Merry Christmas!

or more specifically …

Merry Christmas to you!

or more completely …

I wish you a Merry Christmas! 

I won’t say Happy Holidays because, in actuality, that would include wishing you a Happy Flag Day. And while I hope your June 14 is pleasant, I prefer to be much more specific about celebrations in December.

And Christmas is set apart from all other holidays. It reaches a much higher, might we say, angelic realm. For we say: Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy St. Patrick Day, Happy Independence Day, Happy Labor Day, Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, and Happy New Year. But we wish people a Merry Christmas. It is not just happy – It is merry. There is merriment – joyfulness, cheerfulness, vivaciousness, jolliness, mirth, hilarity, and laughter. Many things in life make you happy, very few things make you merry.

So, Merry Christmas!

I wish you a Merry Christmas!

When I wish you this, I am not trying to change your beliefs. There is no ulterior motive. I am choosing to share the joy I possess with you – the merriment that I experience at Christmastime. Because it is Christmas, and Christmas means so much to me.

And this expression of joy is so universally inclusive because I will offer this greeting to anyone. It goes out to all races, all nations – to Muslims, to Hindus, to atheists. Everybody gets a dose of my Christmas spirit. Even people I don’t like – obnoxious coworkers in my past, I’m talking to you.

Even if you don’t believe as I do, I hope you will still be able to experience the merriment. If you think it is a myth, I will still wish you a Merry Christmas. For this was either the most incredible event in the history of mankind, or the greatest myth ever created by man’s mind. Either way, it is worthy of a grand celebration.

It is so special, so monumental, so blessed, that when I wish you a Merry Christmas…

I wish you love – that your broken relationships are healed or new relationships are kindled. That you have people who care about you and that you care about them. That you love, and receive love back in abundance.

I wish you joy – that the people, circumstances, and events in your life make you more than happy – they provide joy – lasting joy beyond the Christmas season.

I wish you peace – yes, that same peace on Earth, goodwill toward all men that you have heard about. World peace, so that the nations will not war and innocent people will not perish. And personal peace, so those worries  and fears within your head will cease.

I wish you kindness – that people will be kind to you when you make mistakes, react poorly, are rude to them, or are vulnerable. And that you extend kindness to others in the same circumstances.

I wish you generosity – in that when you need help, someone will provide that help. And when you see others in need, you will give freely and generously to meet that need.

I wish you a Merry Christmas!

I wish you happiness, and merriment, and all the jolliness of this season. That for at least one day, you can forget about all the disease, political toxicity, pain, arguments, and worries, and experience the wonder of Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

I wish you a Merry Christmas!

And if somehow you choose to reject all of this, if it upsets or offends you – it’s not on me ….. but it just might be worth taking another look at the whole thing ….

Is Your Christmas Ruined This Year?

By now, you’ve heard the news reports lamenting that Christmas will be ruined this year due to product shortages caused by backups at the West Coast ports.

But can Christmas be stopped because you cannot get all the stuff you want?

Christmas joy should not be confined within those shipping containers sitting on

the docks.

But our culture emphasizes stuff. Everyone is trying to get more stuff. Even though most of us have way more stuff than we need, we crave more. And many people view Christmas as a way to get much more stuff.

Christmas is by far the most religious holiday. Those in the more spiritual realms worship the birth of THE MAN. If your god happens to be money-stuff, you celebrate by buying, giving, and receiving as much stuff as you can.

We are motivated, manipulated, and cheered on in these festivities by the television commercials that tell us this is the season to hoard everything and anything we can. It is troubling that none of these advertisers actually mention the “reason for the season”, carefully using every euphemism in the book to avoid saying …. Christmas. They can’t actually say His name because that would be messy. They don’t want to expose the fact that a so-called holy day is being exploited for profit. One clever retailer has invented the term “Joy. Fully.”, attempting to fuse the spiritual with the physical. Or maybe it just means you should get your joy from a full shopping cart.

So we have combined the original pagan roots of the solstice/Saturlina festival with the commemoration of THE MAN’s birth. And being the highly inclusive people that we are, you have the freedom to celebrate as you prefer.

Now there are plenty of ways to find merriment at Christmastime. And we all celebrate in our personal ways. The three main ways are:

1.    The spiritual aspect, which includes charity that results from faith.

2.    Family and traditions.

3.    The giving and getting of stuff.

To maximize your Christmas joy, you need a balance of all three of these. (Forgive me for thinking like an economist). Overemphasizing any of these reduces the total happiness. If it’s all just the “Mass” part, you miss out on the fun of the traditions and the stuff. This is equivalent to being invited to THE MAN’s birthday party but not being allowed to have any fun. If you get too hooked on just the traditions, (People with thousand-dollar light displays and overzealous cookie-bakers, yeah, you!) you also lose out on some joy. Perhaps, diverting some of the resources to charity could help.

Which brings us back to the “stuff”. The harmful result of being committed, addicted, attracted to the stuff, is that you will value the stuff over people. We have seen the videos of people fighting over products on Black Friday (the holy day for stuff lovers). People have been punched in the face in pursuit of the hottest gifts.

The current conditions where stuff, including money – the means to buy the stuff, is more important than people, is the greatest failing, the most harmful aspect, of our culture. Yes, here greed is good, and that message is pounded into us every day, and unfortunately, more in December than any other time.

If your god is money and the stuff it provides, you will use this season as an opportunity to spend as much money as you possibly can - to explode your money across the universe. That behavior is the natural result of the love of money and stuff, because everyone worships some God, or gods – just be extremely careful which one/ones you choose.

Which brings us back to Christmas.  If there is one universal message of Christmas, and this is true whether you consider it truth or fable, it is that people are much more important than stuff. And nothing is more important than people. As we read about THE MAN, we see He always put the needs of people first. He NEVER, EVER valued stuff more than people. Not once – not one time.

This truth should influence not just how we approach things at Christmas, especially our charity efforts, but all year round. It should impact how we interact with strangers, our relationships, even our political views. And if people are the most important thing, who should we admire more – the CEO of the large corporation or the guy who runs the soup kitchen downtown?

If bare shelves and stockouts can ruin your Christmas, maybe you are doing it wrong.

 

Giving In Abundance From Abundance - The Giving Chronicles (Part 5)

 ^“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

I got a new job after being unemployed for nearly five months. It was a relief to have health insurance again for my daughter and resume a stable lifestyle. But I never forgot the provisions of three Christmas turkeys or the mysterious ways THE CREATOR met all my financial needs, and more, that February. The amazing thing is I ended up with more money in the bank at the end of being unemployed than at the beginning. A pastor asked me how that was possible; I really had no explanation.

The lessons of this tribulation stayed with me. It was another life-changing event. The Christmas giving continued, and I began donating to a ministry that provided gifts to children of needy families. As my children grew older, I was donating more money to that ministry than I was spending on them.

And that is fitting, because this whole thing started with an image of a child with no presents under the Christmas tree.

At that time, I asked: But what can I do about that?

And my answer now is – I can do this! I CAN DO THIS. I WILL DO THIS. 

The Three Turkey Tradition

Sometime after receiving those three turkeys in 1992, I began giving three turkeys to people in need each December. I didn’t provide the actual birds. I would get $20 grocery gift cards early in the month and figure out who they should go to, sometimes sent anonymously.

But then weird things would happen after I gave away the last card. Within a week or so, I would receive some unexpected money which coincidently would be slightly higher than the $60 I had spent.

One year, I surprisingly received a check from the IRS for an overpayment.  Another year, the college where I was teaching part-time had forgotten to compensate me for training I had received in May. I wish I had written down the other unexpected December payments that came my way, but I never anticipated I would be writing about them 20 years later.

And then there was the bizarre poker game in December 2008 that I wrote about last year. I had only given away two gift certificates that year and carried around a $20 bill to give to the next needy person who crossed my path. I donated that $20 to a family whose house had just burned down.

Less than four hours later, the poker game began. My luck was atrocious at the start, and I was soon down to only a couple of chips. I then got tremendously lucky on some desperation hands and had enough chips to continue for another hour. But then, my luck ran out again, and I was back down to almost nothing. I somehow survived sure elimination a second time. I then fought my way back and ended up in heads up (just two players remaining), extremely short-stacked (my opponent has many more chips than I do and has a huge advantage). But my opponent is inexperienced and plays so poorly that I win the $180 first-place prize. I didn’t comprehend what happened until the next morning when I realized there was less than a 1% chance of me winning the game before going on the incredible streak of “luck”..

There were no turkeys given away in 2009. The Great Recession cost me my job. My circumstances were much less dire since my wife was working now. Although, as I have chronicled, I did not respond to the situation well. And for the second time, I came out of the calamity with more money than I started with. Still can’t explain it. 

Time To Raise The Bar

And that experience changed my perspective as well. Why limit it to just three turkeys? So, at Christmastime, I started giving ten turkeys away. Then 20, then 30, and last holiday season, with the help of my friend Reverend John, over 70 turkeys. I don’t say this to brag – it’s just a fact for reference and confirmation of my commitment. 

Part of Rev. John's turkey haul in 2018

But Don, where did the money come from to donate all those turkeys?

Well, if you asked that question – or don’t know the answer, you need to go back to Part 1 and reread the Giving Chronicles.

Because it started with a fundamental truth which is …. One more time …. taken slowly:  

^“Give, - freely, generously with a pure heart when you see people in need of help.

and it will be given to you – you will receive back what you have freely given in some form of blessing or benefit.

 A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap – if your heart and motives have been pure, you will receive back the value of your gift, and more. So much more, that it overflows.

for the measure you give will be the measure you get back – the intent, the compassion, the generosity, the sacrifice of your giving, will determine the quantity of blessings you receive back.

This concludes the Giving Chronicles

 

We Are All Pilgrims This Year

This post is about the plague, the virus, the scourge, the pandemic – if you will.

Wait, don’t go! It’s different than the thousands of commentaries already written on this subject.

You see, I don’t care if you wear a mask, don’t wear a mask, vaccinated, non-vaccinated, virus survivor, skeptic, Democrat, Republican, Independent, or other.

I do care that when you inhale, your lungs fill the air. If they do, you are still alive. Which means you have survived the scourge, so far.  This is no small accomplishment. I have told people over the past two years, “If you celebrate a birthday during a pandemic, it is a blessed occasion. If you celebrate two, even better.

You see, 765,000 Americans have died from the virus.

Oh, you want to argue that the number is too high because deaths for other illnesses were intentionally misclassified? Okay …

But you want to argue that the number is too low because some people died and never made it to a testing site or hospital? Okay, also.

Let’s just assume these two factors totally cancel the other out, and 765,000, and counting, is a reasonable number. The count worldwide is at 5.1 million.

And this is because pandemics kill people. That’s what pandemics do. We hadn’t had a severe pandemic since 1918. The frustrating part is that even though mankind is 100 years smarter and medical technology has advanced exponentially, we still can’t keep a lethal microbe from killing us. Mask on, mask off, shots, jabs, distancing, quarantines -- it’s still striking us dead.

But even though it’s killed 765,000 of your countrymen, it hasn’t gotten you. You have not been infected. Or you were infected, but your immune system neutralized it. Or you became ill (I’m in this category), and you were able to survive.

Which brings us to Thanksgiving. These days we really don’t give much thanks. We take our wealth, health, and blessings so much for granted. Maybe on Thursday we say a group prayer before we gluttonously gorge ourselves on the holiday feast. But that’s about it.

The Pilgrims started all this, and if you read the history, you will find that they were essentially thanking THE CREATOR for still being alive on that first Thanksgiving. That is a strange concept when you think about it. But the Pilgrims had that faith thing down right, much more than our present culture. So, we find ourselves back to the beginning, so to speak. Back to the basics. Back to life-or-death. 

This has been a brutal year. Besides the fatal virus, add in the cancers, the accidents, the illnesses, the overdoses plus everything else, and death has claimed someone in our circle. (My posse has been hit hard this year.)

So after making it through this year, and still being able to draw breath through our lungs, we, like the Pilgrims, need to offer up thanks to THE CREATOR for our life – our actual life. For still being alive, when so many others have perished.

And I’m not talking about just “being thankful” or “feeling thankful” or “making a list of things to be thankful for”. No, not enough. Not even close. There is a difference between feeling wealthy and actually being wealthy. There is a difference between feeling blessed and actually being blessed. So, there is an enormous difference between feeling thankful and actually giving thanks.

The Pilgrims got it. They really got it. That’s why the holiday is called Thanks- Giving. So today, it’s time to literally get on your knees and give thanks to THE CREATOR for continuing to give you life. (Yes, I am going to do this) This giving of thanks will provide a spiritual cleansing. This is greatly needed since the virus has infected more than our bodies. It has infected our souls. And there is no vaccine to fix that.

I give thanks to THE CREATOR for your life ……

The Story of the Three Turkeys – The Giving Chronicles (Part 4)

 ^“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

When you have always worked, and you want to work, the stress of being unemployed  grinds on you constantly. Although I had no immediate financial issues, there was high anxiety about the future. I had a family to care for and a daughter with medical conditions.

This heavy stress plays tricks on your mind. You begin to have irrational thoughts and fears. Years later, you regard some of these as downright silly, but at the time, they seem totally normal.

As I entered my second month of unemployment in December 1992, the stress began to get to me. It isn’t easy to job hunt at the end of the year since most companies pause their recruiting efforts until mid-January. But having more free time means there is more time for those irrational thoughts to fester.

There were two distressing thoughts constantly rolling around in my head. The first was the fear that I would eventually lose my house and my family would have to wander homeless in the street. Fortunately, that never came close to happening.  

The second was that I was a failure because I would be unable to provide a turkey for our family Christmas dinner. This idea was preposterous. We had plenty of money to afford a turkey. But that didn’t matter much to me. I saw myself as the family provider, and if I didn’t have a job, I had failed to provide this essential Christmas element.

Now, you may consider this chauvinistic, sexist, paternalistic, toxic masculinity, etc. – throw the whole darn arsenal at me. But that’s who I am; however, in this case, it was toxic because it traumatized me every day as the holiday approached.

The voice inside my head yelled out:

“You can’t provide a turkey. There may not be a turkey. You have no turkey, none. Your holiday dinner could be ruined because there may not be a turkey. It is your responsibility to provide a turkey, and you have failed. You have failed your family. What type of man cannot provide a turkey?”

This hellish “turkey loop” was played in my head several times a day, every day. I would guess obsessing over something unimportant is your brain’s defense mechanism from obsessing over things that are really important. But I was obsessed over this turkey problem. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone about this fear because I knew it was irrational, yet there it was every day.

A Turkey From Heaven

Two Sundays before Christmas, about twelve days prior, our Sunday School group at church presented my wife and me with five large boxes of food at the end of class. I was up front thanking the people for their generosity, but then someone came up behind me and set a large frozen turkey on one of the boxes.

Never in my adult life has a small gift made me feel so jubilant. Just as worrying about not having a turkey created irrational, enormous sadness, receiving an unexpected turkey produced tremendous joy.

I had a turkey! They gave me a turkey! And I no longer would be tormented by this any longer. This is one of my best memories of this time in my life.

It did cause some storage issues, however. The big bird took up almost all the space in our 90’s standard freezer located at the top of the refrigerator. My wife had to move some stuff around, but she made it all fit. 

But Wait … There’s More

I felt much better that week not worrying about a turkey and still being jubilant about the gift I had received. And then things got even better. Friday afternoon, there was a knock on the door. It was Carl from our church. He said that he had been delivering turkeys to needy families for the church, and of course, I wasn’t needy, but he had ended up with an extra turkey he wanted to give to me.

Of course, this was a white lie. If I wasn’t considered needy, then what was my name doing on his list – he obviously had my address. This was just his way of making sure I accepted the turkey. But before I could explain that the church, in effect, had already given me a turkey, he literally shoves the bird into my chest. I instinctively grab it, partially in self-defense. But once I had taken possession of the turkey, Carl quickly retreats and wishes me “Merry Christmas” as he sprints back to his car.

I put the second turkey in the fridge and explained the circumstances to my wife when she returned home. Because Christmas is now just a week away, we can thaw the first turkey in the refrigerator and store the second turkey in the freezer. The plan is to roast the second turkey in late January and then get our freezer space back.

And We Are Not Done Yet

Two days later, I took a Sunday afternoon nap. When I awoke, my wife informed me that our friend Dave, who worked at the local homeless shelter, had stopped by. He had been delivering turkeys to needy families … and guess what … he had an extra turkey.

If I had been awake, I’m sure I would have tried to reject this third bird. I know I was supposed to accept all gifts, but this was too many turkeys for me to possess … which brings us back to this …..

^“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

In eight days, I had received more turkeys than I had room for. And you can’t press down and shake together frozen turkeys, can you? Turkeys  had run over my freezer capacity, into my lap - so to speak. THE CREATOR had just literally provided a “running over” of turkeys.

The question I posed in Part 1 of this series, is how is this statement from THE MAN could possibly be true. How could you receive so much you cannot contain it? Yet, there I was. The turkeys were overflowing. The strange thing is I never asked anyone for a turkey. I never prayed for a turkey. I just worried constantly about it.

But then, this heavenly provision did cause an earthly problem: I had more turkeys than I could store. That night, I called my friend Jim, who had a large freezer. After hearing my plight, he graciously agreed to stow two of the turkeys for me. My family enjoyed the second turkey in April and invited Jim and his wife Frannie over for a cookout in August, where we feasted on the final bird.

^“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

There are teachings from THE MAN that I continue to struggle with. There are many others that I accept as true by faith. But this one, I don’t need to accept by faith, because faith is only necessary for the unseen. This proclamation, I know, is true. I have held the cold evidence in my own hands.

 

 

 

 

 

Giving Is Easy – But Receiving is Hard (The Giving Chronicles – Part 3)

 ^“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

The real test if someone has had a conviction, conversion, or life change event is not what they say, or in this case write, it’s what they do. You can say anything, claim anything, but does your behavior change?

You can dismiss or explain away my “Christmas conviction” if you wish, but my behavior definitely changed. Within days, I donated $100 after I got hit with two unexpected big repair bills. But the impact didn’t stop with that one check. That image of the kid with no Christmas presents had been burned into my brain.

As a result, donations were made to various Christmas gift fund drives in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991. But there was no check written in 1992. I had been downsized from my job in October, a casualty of the economic recession.  Now, I found myself on the other side – not giving help, but needing help.

But I was much too proud to ask anyone for help – even too proud to receive any help. I would have to be near death before I might agree to receive any aid from anybody. However, soon after the job loss, it was communicated to me that people were going to offer me stuff, and when they did, I was to accept the gifts graciously and say “thank you”.

You see, when you reject the help of others, you prevent them from following THE MAN’s “give command”. If you don’t receive the gift, you prevent that person from receiving the blessing of giving the gift. That’s wrong for you to do – a bad transgression.

And yet, I only actually asked two people for help the entire time. Yes, I had lost my income, but more worrisome was losing my health insurance. My oldest daughter (there were two now) had a seizure disorder. The seizures would occur at random times and, depending on the severity, could produce a $20,000 hospital bill before insurance. Therefore, going without insurance was not an option, and a cheap policy wouldn’t suffice. I would have to find a way to make the expensive COBRA payments.

I was given the name of a social service worker who a friend thought could help me with this expense. I thought it would be a wasted call since I lived in a different county than the agency served. I even started the conversation by apologizing for even calling her. But she didn’t care where I lived, she asked me what county I had worked in. Oh, it seems the funding covered both people who lived in the county or had worked in the county. Then she instantly approved me for two months of COBRA payments. I asked my mother later for help for the other two months' payments I would end up needing. And asking you mother for help is much easier than asking others.

“Give, And It Will Be Given To You”

But even though I didn’t ask, it doesn’t mean I did not receive. I had faithfully given in those prior years, and now it was coming back to me in awesome, incredible, mysterious ways. There were three distinct events that are relevant to THE MAN’s proclamation on giving. (the quote that begins this post)

#1 All The Bills Get Paid

I didn’t publicize my situation, but I didn’t hide it either, and almost immediately, people offered me assistance. It was difficult to receive it, but I put my pride aside, accepted the help, and said thank you each time. I can’t remember all the people and all the ways people assisted. I do know that my friend Larry, who died of cancer a year later, paid my electric bill for two months. Yes, I was in a financially difficult situation, but all the bills got paid with money from unemployment compensation and my wife’s part-time, holiday job.

However, things took a peculiar turn in early February. So much money was being given to me by a host of people that I had excess funds after I paid the bills. This was difficult for me to process. I felt guilty receiving money that I did not need. My solution was to give away the excess funds to two needy people. There was a person with cancer whose financial light was reported in the newspaper. I don’t remember the second one. I mailed out the checks, but within three days, that money, and more, had come flying back to my mailbox from other people.

This was one of those literal God-fearing moments where you put your hands up in front of you and take a step back in awe. I gave away no more excess money and when I returned to work several weeks later, my bank account was higher than before the job loss.. Let that sink in; I was unemployed for four and a half months and ended up with more money than I started with.

#2 A Very Merry Christmas

I instructed my wife to spend as much on Christmas gifts for our two young daughters as she typically would. You can tell Christmas gifts are important to me, so why should my girls suffer because their father doesn’t have a job? So, my wife and I didn’t exchange gifts that year, and she bought the girls everything they needed, or asked for.

But then, two days after she had completed her shopping, an anonymous letter arrived in the mail with $100 worth of gift certificates at Toys Are Us, with a note to buy gifts for my daughters. The “Geoffrey Dollars” had an expiration date of December 24, so off to the store I went. 

And it was difficult spending $50 (in 1992 dollars) on each girl after we had already bought all their obvious gifts. It must have taken me ten minutes pushing that full cart around the store one more time to spend the final ten dollars on that last gift.

Running Over, Into Your Lap

Both receiving more money than your expenses, and buying $100 more Christmas gifts than planned could be considered an overflow of blessings about which that THE MAN had decreed. But it is the third event that provides the stunning, complete, literal answer.

Next Time: The Story of the Three Turkeys

 

 

Time For A Change In Perspective - The Giving Chronicles, Part 2

 

Most life-changing events are big, prominent happenings, occurring externally but impacting internally. Then there are those subtle, quiet rumblings that impact from the inside out.

It was the first week of December 1987. I had returned home from a mentally exhausting workday. Within minutes, my wife had delivered the following news:

-       The refrigerator, which had been making strange noises, would need a major repair.

-       The VCR[i], which doubled as our video camera, had stopped working and would need to be fixed before Christmas.

-       My master’s thesis[ii], which my wife had been typing into our first ever PC, had vanished from the 5 ¼” floppy disk[iii].

Money was tight since my wife wasn’t working in order to raise our young, slightly-special needs daughter. Two major repairs would put a dent in the holiday budget. It would take weeks for the thesis to be retyped, putting me way behind schedule for the submission deadline.

If these events had been spaced out a few days, they still would have stung, but the impact would have been more easily absorbed. But hitting all at once was more than my psyche could take that evening.

I could not calm down. I kept rolling each of these events around in my head, like a closed-loop horror film that I could not turn off. After dinner and putting my daughter to bed, I plopped down on the couch and turned on the television, hoping that would provide a much-needed escape from my worries. But I couldn’t even concentrate on the program because it was being preempted by the one running through my brain:

refrigerator bill … VCR bill … lost thesis … refrigerator bill … VCR bill … lost thesis …

I couldn’t stop the loop while awake, so I decided to go to bed, even though it was just past 8:30. Except for illness, this is the earliest bedtime in my adult life.

However, I am not the least bit sleepy. I’m wide awake, lying there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, with the same horror loop freaking me out.

I was in distress; it was quiet, it was dark. So, naturally I reached out to THE CREATOR for help in my plight. And I learned something important. THE CREATOR doesn’t respond well when you offer up whiny complaints about your first-world problems.

First, there was the strong rebuke. “You’re actually complaining because your fancy, expensive VCR is broken?”

Okay, when you put it that way. I guess that it is rather petty. Let’s forget I even brought it up.

But it was too late …

Next came the revelation. I was told to imagine an expectant child running down the steps on Christmas morning, only to encounter just a Christmas tree, with no presents underneath it. (This is a powerful image – if you don’t believe me – quick, imagine it yourself right now.)

And this hit me where it hurts. Because I was an only child, which meant on Christmas morning, every single gift under that tree was mine, all mine. And better still, I was an only child of an only child, which meant every present under Grandma’s tree was also mine. (Gee, and you wonder why I love Christmas so much?)

But the image of that kid with no presents ravaged me. It tore my soul open, and I was hemorrhaging spiritual blood. “Yes, that’s an awful scene – but what can I do about this?”

Then came the command. My church had announced the previous Sunday they were collecting money to buy watches (apparently someone had an excess supply) to give to underprivileged kids as Christmas gifts. I immediately dismissed it as something I wouldn’t bother with.

But now, I was expected to donate more than token money to this cause? Oh, no! Absolutely not!  I got to pay for the refrigerator. I got to pay for the VCR. I got to pay for Christmas. No. No money left for watches. Okay?  Oh, not okay? Not okay, at all. $100? Really? Okay, really … 

So that Sunday, I wrote a check for $100 for watches for Christmas gifts for some kids I didn’t know and would never meet. And it did feel good to know none of those kids would go “giftless” this year.

The credit card took a hit, but the refrigerator got fixed. The VCR got fixed. And Christmas got fully paid for. It took my friend Fred, one of the early computer whizzes, all of five minutes to find where my thesis was hiding on that tricky floppy disk.

Christmas 1987 turned out great. And life went merrily along. But that encounter on that unsettling December evening would have a life-long impact.

 Footnotes for those younger readers:

 [i] Video Cassette Recorder. It recorded television shows onto videotape. Mine was an expensive model where the part containing the tape detached. A separate camera plugged into it to record home movies.

[ii] This was a full MBA which took four years to complete going part-time. A thesis was not required but I choose to do one through independent study because I enjoy researching an writing.

[iii] The first floppy discs were flimsy and had to be handled with care. You had to insert them into a “floppy drive” each time you started up the computer and then you saved your file on another floppy disc. The only way to “backup” your data was to save the same data on two discs, which you almost never did.

 

 

The Giving Chronicles – Part One “Give and it will be given back to you”

(Author’s note: This is the first post of a multi-part series that begins in 1987. It is an unusual way to start off. However, this topic needed to be covered at some point, and I did not want to stick it in the middle, disrupting the narrative. So, please put up with this one, which seemingly has no point. I promise you - we are about to go on a most fascinating journey)

“Give, and it will be given to you”

This is a universal truth; in that, it is espoused by most major religions. The idea is that if we do good, help others, or give assistance, that the cosmos will ultimately pay us back in kind.

It is this concept that “life is fair” that somehow naturally lives deep within us. And even though we know life is not fair, sometimes cruelly unfair, it still makes us feel better if we think things will even out in the end, and we will be rewarded for every good deed that we do.

However, religion introduces rules for giving because that’s what religion does. There are rules for everything else, so it stands to reason there would be rules on how we are supposed to give away our money.

When THE MAN walked this earth, the rich and pious had written many rules about how a “holy” person should give his resources. Of course, the rules favored the rich, like our tax laws today, because the rich wrote the rules.

The rich used these rules to abuse the poor people psychologically and spiritually. The poor felt ashamed and frustrated because they could not meet the stringent requirements. Many of them may have stopped giving all together because it was too demanding. However, it can be assumed the laws enabled the rich to avoid paying “their fair share” and providing some loopholes.

And to set things right, THE MAN proclaims this:

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

There’s a lot in that short statement. So, let’s break it down.

Give

Into this ugly mess, THE MAN brings forth wisdom to set things right. Strangely, he does not go into a complicated discussion about why all the invented rules are wrong. Nor does he rebuke the common people either. He does not launch into a lengthy sermon on the proper attitude towards giving – the people already know that and are well aware they are not following the guidelines.

No, THE MAN utters a simple one-word command – GIVE. He doesn’t say when to give, how much to give, who to give to – just GIVE. So, forget the rules, forget the complications, forget the excuses – just GIVE.

And It Will Be Given To You

And there it is …. Life is fair, and if you give to others, someday the cosmos will pay back the favor, and you will get a reward you for your generosity. Even Steven! Karma! Payback!

Yes, here THE MAN is on the same wavelength as many great philosophers and prophets. However, there is one huge difference. It’s right there in those seven words. You read right over it, and we’ll come back to it in a moment.

If THE MAN had stopped right there, the statement is universally accepted and consistent with natural beliefs, but He did not. He kicked it up a notch.

Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

In those times when you bought grain, most vendors would pour the grain until it filled your vessel and send you on your way. But the sellers who provided the most value would pour the grain in the vessel, press it down, then shake it together to condense it, and then repeat the process until the grain was tightly packed and you received the maximum amount. 

So what THE MAN is saying is that you will get more than a fair return on your giving. And then He lifts the bar. He pumps it up. He raises the roof.

After your vessel contains the maximum payback, more grain is going to be poured on top. So much, that you can’t contain it - so much that it overflows and spills over into your lap.

What THE MAN is proposing: Give, and you will receive back more than you gave. So much more, it will overflow.

And this happens not by luck, or chance, or karma, etc. It is deliberate. Because the other difference in THE MAN’s statement alluded to previously is “ and it will be GIVEN to you. If it is given, then there must be a giver. THE MAN is saying THE CREATOR will purposely and generously give back to you.

This is far beyond the teaching of other religions and philosophers. THE MAN has truly raised the bar. It’s what separates the God from the gods.

Of course, on the surface, it appears the message is that if you want to get rich, just give stuff away to people. Or maybe, just give me your money, and you’ll get more money back – a spiritual Ponzi scheme, as it were. And many religious hucksters on television have perverted this teaching to become rich over the years.

But that is not what THE MAN is laying down. This proclamation must be evaluated in the context of all the teaching about the attitude of giving and the spiritual aspects involved. The people hearing this knew they were falling short. And THE MAN talked more about money than you would expect when He was here.

But the statement is no doubt bizarre. Many people reject it as silliness, proof that THE MAN was some type of misunderstood lunatic. Others just find it not believable. Even his followers find it difficult to process or defend this statement, only believing it by faith, but …..

So, it’s a crazy, unbelievable statement …. Or is it?

 

 

 

Editor Jane Was A Big Pain

(Chapter 11 of my book, Turkey Terror At My Door! contains essays about two high school teachers who were instrumental in me becoming an author. Because these were part of a “high-school” series, I couldn’t give credit to one other person responsible for my success.)

I arrived on The University of Akron campus in the fall of 1976. I  concentrated on my studies for a couple of months, but eventually wandered up to the student newspaper office to display my high school writing success on a bigger stage.

Few students read The Buchtelite (the name a holdover from when the school was known as Buchtel College). Akron U was a commuter school operating in the center of town. It was one of the most boring campuses in the country. There was usually nothing of significance for the newspaper to report on, and when there was, most of the students didn’t care. Many referred to the school as Apathy U.

As a result, most of my freshman humor writings were intended to be shocking, outrageous diatribes designed to catch people’s attention by slapping them in the face. The paper only ran them because they weren’t dull, and they had nothing better to print. If these articles were published today (first, they wouldn’t dare), I would be immediately expelled from the college. If I ran for political office today, these awful, politically incorrect essays would make headlines.

Before my sophomore year, I marched up to the Buchtelite office and pitched my idea to write a weekly humor column called Ake’s Pains. I was brash. I was outrageous. I was filled with all the naïve bravado of a 19-year-old guy. There is no way they should have ever agreed to this. But Editor Jane said, “Sure, let’s try it!” I’m not sure if she really liked the idea or she just needed to fill space on the editorial page once a week.

Therefore, Jane became my first real editor. And as a writer, I hate editors. Because editors take your perfect writing, mark it up, and change things until your work becomes less than perfect. And make no mistake, my writing was perfect, absolutely perfect, because I was a 19-year-old college student and I thought I knew everything.

I hated Editor Jane. Now, only as an editor, mind you. Regular Jane was sweet, pleasant, intelligent, funny, and also - - cute! Nothing to dislike there. But I always became agitated during our weekly closed-door (so nobody could hear the yelling) meetings when we reviewed my upcoming column, which meant Editor Jane telling me what I couldn’t say or changing how I said it. In my mind, she was ruining my writing by sucking much of the humor right out of it. 

But the column from week one, was still a big hit on campus. The students loved my satirical wit and how I made fun of stuff on campus. They thoroughly enjoyed how I stuck it to “The Man” every week.

However, “The Man”, or the administration, was much less enamored by my rants. I could imagine the big-wigs getting all red-faced when the Buchtelite hit campus Friday morning. To them, I was not funny at all. I was a scourge, and they took offense at my viewpoints.

For example, students had discovered cockroaches in one of the dorms —a very embarrassing situation for the administration. The following week, I wrote that the biggest event on campus was the cockroach races being held in West Haven Dorm, with the winner being Secretari-roach. (You old-timers will get the joke)

At the time, I hated Editor Jane and how she diluted my writing. However, when I look back at my progression from a writer to an author, I realize that Editor Jane played a critical part. I would not have written three books if it was not for the hated Editor Jane.

Editor Jane was able to skillfully edit my work so that students still thoroughly enjoyed it and found it humorous, yet it was not so disgusting that the administration shut me down. And I’m sure there were phone calls from the “V.P.s” telling her that enough was enough – that the Ake guy was a real pain and needed to be silenced. But Editor Jane never buckled to the pressure. She threaded that needle perfectly.

Editor Jane had my best interest at heart. She coached me, mentored me, improved my writing, and helped me. She never rejected anything I submitted outright. She never limited my topics but was able to smooth out those literal sophomoric expressions into popular pieces.

She gave me an opportunity that I didn’t deserve and made me successful at my craft at that critical point in my literary career. And for all that, I hated her. I took her for granted. I viewed the situation from the selfish perspective of an immature college guy with no appreciation at all for how much she was helping me.

Because of Editor Jane, I wrote columns for three years in college, experimenting with different styles my senior year. I thought Ake’s Pains was done when I graduated. But 31 years later, Ake’s Pains was resurrected as a humor blog and was the catalyst for all three of my books.

We need to appreciate those people who are helping us now and have helped us in the past, and express that appreciation to them. More importantly, we need to be the one who helps others along the way, because we have no idea about how our efforts may inspire someone to achieve greatness.

 

 

 

 

Nobody’s Perfect – So Stop Expecting Them To Be

Recently I had to replace my old clock radio. Yes, I’m a Boomer, so I use a clock radio rather than my phone alarm to wake up every morning.

I am glad my old unit finally died because I hated it. It was difficult to tune, and I had to adjust it frequently because the controls were poorly positioned. Resetting the time was complicated and always necessitated reading the instructions. And the battery backup mechanism was busted. 

However, my new clock radio has many great new features. The radio is easy to tune and has a digital display. I can also set the time and alarms easily and quickly. It has dual alarms, one for weekdays and one for weekends. It even has two USB ports for charging my devices overnight. 

This new clock radio is tremendously superior to my old one, and I would love it, except for one glaring deficiency: It doesn’t keep time very well. It is proficient in all things, except that clock part, the core purpose of why it exists.

And in contemplating the absurdity of this irony, I realize the clock radio suffers from the same fate as us humans: No one is proficient in everything. Everyone has weaknesses, blind spots, deficiencies, Achilles heels.

When the molecules are mixed in our DNA, some abilities are in short supply; others may be lacking altogether. This results in mathematical geniuses who are incapable of driving a car. You have politicians who are extraordinary problems solvers who lack empathy for the people they are trying to help. In my case, I can make sense of complex data, seeing how all the pieces fit together. However, if presented with a simple assembly of anything, those parts suddenly become impossible to connect. Some parts of your brain are exceptional; other parts are barely proficient.

You would think that in all the billions of people whoever lived, the DNA would just click in just one time to produce the perfect person, but it never has. (I’m only considering DNA that exists on this planet for this one)

The peculiar thing is that even though we know the perfect person doesn’t exist, we expect our fellow human beings to be perfect. We readily acknowledge that we have faults and weaknesses, yet we get frustrated when people behave stupidly or fail to perform to our standards. And why we even have a concept of “perfection” is a mystery.

We tend to value our proficiencies more because we are good at them and then dismiss those areas where we are weak. Thus, we get highly agitated with others when they make a blunder doing something we are good at (how could they mess that up?) but identify with and show empathy to people making the same mistakes as we do.

An important aspect of wisdom, gained from experience, is to know your strengths and your weaknesses. This knowledge permits you to avoid failures and admire those with different skills which you lack. If you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, it’s time for a bit of self-reflection.

I don’t know why we expect anyone to be perfect. No one is perfect; we are all far from perfect. Either there is some strange evolutionary benefit of having high expectations (maybe we killed off all those who frustrated us too much), or we were created as imperfect beings by a perfect being. The latter may explain where our concept of “perfect” originated.

Key Thought: Do not expect other people to be perfect because you are not perfect.

Just as people irritate you because they are different, be assured you are just as irritating to some other people. For example, intelligent people can be frustrated by the actions of the less intelligent. And the less intelligent get annoyed when the eggheads can’t explain things in simpler terms and get upset over trivial matters.  

When we don’t expect perfection from other people, we aren’t as irritated and judgmental when they fall short. It also helps us in our personal relationships with people different than ourselves.

But the challenge now becomes to be more tolerant of others when they fail. This is difficult when that miscue causes a loss of time, money, or something else from us. If we can offer our strengths to help other’s weaknesses and get that same assistance with our struggles, life would be so much better. However, to be forgiving, tolerant, and compassionate does not come naturally to us, because ….. we are not perfect.