Christmas is Here! Hallelujah!

Christmas is here! Christmas is here! Once it started, I haven't stopped moving. I can't believe its been a week since I posted, and I don't have time to post again today...my son is home from school, and I have too much going on. We had a wonderful, blessed Christmas, and good things just keep happening. Now I can send my cards out, so that's on the menu for today. I did want to post this on Christmas Day, but time got away from me, so here goes!

Have You Said Thank You Yet?

Not what we give, but what we share, for the Gift without the Giver is bare.
~James Russell Lowell, author

Very, very tired tonight. Went a-visiting to beat the storm today :). But before it got too late, I wanted to post a short message about Christmas. Father’s homily on Christmas Day was about the gift of Jesus and while I’ve thought about this in passing in previous years, this year it really struck home.

The reason for the season (as so many church billboards remind us this time of year) is Jesus. It’s His birthday we celebrate by giving each other gifts. But what gifts do we give to Jesus? Imagine a birthday party where the guest of honor was neglected or even ignored, while all the guests spent weeks and weeks shopping for gifts for each other. Seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?

Take that one step further and imagine a party where all the guests (except the guest of honor) received a gift from the host, and nobody stopped to say thank you.

Jesus was God’s gift to us, and through Him, the gift of everlasting life. I hope during this Christmas season (because now it truly is the Christmas season, all twelve days of it :)) we all take time out to think about what that means to us, and, at the very least, say thank you.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night :). Stay safe and warm if snow is headed your way, or already there.

Helping the Homeless, Part Two

Stewardship is often defined as everything we do
after we say, “I believe.”
stew•ard•ship
Function: noun
1: the office, duties, and obligations of a steward
2: the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care
• We are God’s; ALL of our being belongs to God, our bodies, minds, and spirits
• All of our time, talents, and treasures are from God, for God, and the property of God
• We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.
— Winston Churchill
• No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. — Calvin Coolidge

We are just passing through this world and are given and entrusted with Time, Talent, and Treasure to use for God’s glory and our good.

Last week my email box was flooded with emails about blizzards and frigid temperatures and people shoveling their cars out from under mountains of snow, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the homeless who live in their cars or worse in this type of weather. What does it say about us as a society that we spend hours upon hours shopping for gifts half of us don’t need or want, just because the media tells us to, while we let people sleep in cars and cardboard boxes and on city sidewalks?

Call me a Scrooge if you want—I don’t decorate or bake or go to Christmas parties, and this year I probably won’t even send out Christmas cards--but over 90,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles alone. One friend wrote of hundreds of people living in cardboard boxes along riverbanks in Colorado because the shelters are all full, in temperatures that dipped to 26 degrees below last week. These are families with men, women and children. Another mentioned seeing people sleeping in the streets in Philadelphia, a phenomenon that is repeated nightly in cities all across the nation.

Yesterday, I had my post all written, then accidentally deleted it. By then an hour and a half had passed, and I was hungry. So I went to my refrigerator and just stood there, staring at all the food in it and being grateful that I had so many choices when there are so many who have none. Being grateful that I was in a warm and dry home of my own while the wind blew and the rain poured. I can’t even begin to imagine the desolation the homeless must feel.

I then went to Mass, to give thanks for all that I’ve been given, put a check for the church’s food pantry in the collection plate, and although I was not hungry, agreed to go to lunch with a friend simply because I could.

I wanted to do so being aware of the blessing that was, to be able to walk into a restaurant and order whatever I wanted. We sat there for hours, talking and catching up on our lives. We would have closed the place down, had it been a different type of establishment. But for those few hours we were dry and warm and full, unlike so many others in our country, and for that I was grateful.

I want to ask you here to take a moment and think about the blessings you’ve been given, and find a way to share those blessings in this time of hardship for so many. Find out where your local homeless shelters are, make a pot of soup or a casserole or a few dozen extra Christmas cookies and drop them off on your way out shopping or to that Christmas party or concert. Take the money you would spend on a gift that a friend or relative doesn’t want or need, and donate it to your local food pantry. Drop a few dollars into the can outside the store and offer the Salvation Army bellringer a warm hello and a smile. Don’t avoid eye contact and pretend he or she isn’t there. Dig those old Christmas trees and ornaments you don’t use any more out of the attic or basement and donate them to someplace that could use a little Christmas cheer.

Go through your closets and collect your old coats and hats and gloves and blankets and drop them off at the nearest church or distribution center. They’re everywhere, if you just look. Take your children’s old books and toys to a community shelter for the kids there to read and play with. Take some time out of your frenzied Christmas preparations to volunteer at a community shelter and give the regular workers a break from the exhaustion that comes from serving others. Remember the reason for the season.

There are so many ways to help, just using what we already have on hand. And don’t forget to pray. Prayer costs nothing, but goes a long, long way.

Time, talent, and treasure. There is power in numbers. If everyone who can afford to did just a little, think of how much nicer a Christmas it could be for all of us.

Sunday's Inspirational Quote

The ulitmate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I got this quote from the front page of the The Rainforest Site. I blogged about this site a while back, Click to Give Hope. I now get a daily email reminder to click for the rainforest, hunger, literacy, breast cancer, animal rescue and children's health. This morning when I clicked, this quote was on The Rainforest Site, but by the time I got my act together, it was gone, replaced by another. Thankfully, it came around again, so I could copy it :) .

It only takes a minute to click on all six sites, and I want to note that the Breast Cancer Site is having a special click-fest, where they're trying to reach 300 mammograms, so they can help fund a cure with $20,000 through their charitable partner, GreaterGood.org. As of today, they have reached 18% of their goal. Yesterday it was 17%. So every click counts.

Last, but not least, it's time to start thinking of Christmas again. My son and I have decided that instead of giving gifts to each other this year, as we have for the past two years, we will donate what we would have spent to Heifer International, to help fight world hunger.

It's not just about leaving a good world to our children, it's about teaching them how they can help while they are still children, so that lesson carries on to their adulthood and to their children.

Please consider Heifer International in your gift-giving this holiday season. In the meantime, sign up for a daily reminder to click for other worthy causes.