We Need a Little Christmas

Normally at this time of year, I’d be bemoaning the incursion of all things Christmas on the more homely, peaceful rhythms of late fall. I’d complain about Thanksgiving getting short shrift while all the tinsel and trappings took over. But with COVID-19 surging across the country and families forced to cancel or restrict their Thanksgiving feasts, it doesn’t seem right to quibble about Americans seeking some Christmas cheer.

We have had a bout of mild weather here in the Midwest, which has inspired homeowners to get out those boxes of twinkly lights and blow-up Santas and put them up early. Already storefronts and lampposts have been adorned with wreaths and lights. Fully decorated Christmas trees are making an early appearance too. And for once I say, bring it on!

The grim toll that the coronavirus has taken on our people shows no slowing down with more than 250,000 dead and many people facing the lingering effects of a virus we know too little about. Once simple and pleasurable activities such as dining out or having friends over have become fraught with risk. Many Americans have not seen important loved ones for nearly a year. Grandparents and their grandchildren have missed out on hugs and kisses. People struggling with mental illness are suffering from the isolation and fear. We are all hurting this holiday season.

So I say we pull out all the stops and blanket the world with Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice – all the festivals of light and hope. Let’s get our peppermint mochas and stuff ourselves with gingerbread cookies and latkes. We should stretch out the eight days of Hanukkah to 28, the 12 days of Christmas to 24. We should spend our days listening to holiday music and our evenings watching holiday programs on TV.

There have been promising developments in the race to produce a vaccine that will help us gain control over the scourge of COVID-19. I feel hopeful that next year at this time we can look back at 2020 within the cozy bosom of our families and feel grateful that we have endured.

In the meantime, let’s stay home and partake in all the fun and frivolity of the season. This YouTube video might be a good start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYpdPP-RqkU

For All the Saints

After all the excitement and tom foolery of Halloween, All Saints Day falls gently in its wake. A holy day in the Catholic Church, All Saints Day honors the men and women who, through the centuries, dedicated themselves to Christ and to others to such a degree that miracles accompanied their existences.

As a young girl, I held the saints in awe. My favorite book was titled Sixty Saints for Girls, and it featured women who had given their lives for their faith. My favorite saint was Agnes, and I took Agnes as my confirmation name. Agnes was a young virgin who decided to dedicate her life to Christ and refused to marry. She met a horrific death, as did many of the saints. I often questioned whether I would have been able to withstand such torture to uphold my faith.

But martyrdom is not the only way to become a saint. Many of our greatest saints were intellectuals, missionaries, and indefatigable workers who modeled what it meant to live not for oneself, but for the greater good. Thomas Aquinas, Dorothy Day, and Mother Teresa come to mind as exemplars of the faith. All of them in their own way performed the Christian task of dying to self in order to live for Christ.

The beginning of November is a fitting time to honor the dead. Fall is waning, and the Earth is preparing for an extended winter slumber. In Mexican culture, the period from October 31 to November 2 is celebrated as the Dia de Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. In the Catholic Church, All Saints Day is followed by All Souls Day on November 2, a day devoted to praying for our beloved dead that they attain the ultimate prize of eternal life with God.

For the faithful, All Saints Day is a reminder that our lives are about so much more than ourselves. For all of us, the beautiful acts of sacrifice performed by many of the saints inspire us to greater selflessness and love for others. May their acts of courage give us hope for our present circumstances and for the promise of eternal life.

Boo!

Despite the November-level temperatures that have descended on us like a harbinger of winter, I have been bundling up and taking my daily walks. On my most recent one, I kept seeing the same yard sign on front lawn after front lawn. It showed a cartoon big cat in a ghost costume and sported the announcement, “WE’VE BEEN BOO’D.”

For the uninitiated, being “boo’d” means that someone sneaked up to your door in the weeks before Halloween and deposited a bag or bucket of sweet treats on the doorstep. The signs are apparently a way to indicate that one’s household has already been hit, and booers should spread the wealth in Halloween candy somewhere else.

But the signs also celebrate a simple and neighborly tradition whose sole purpose is to light up the eyes of children. I distinctly remember the joy my children felt when the doorbell rang on a dark autumn evening and we found a decorated bag of goodies left on the doorstep. The goodies came with a piece of paper adorned with a ghost and the message that we’d been boo’d. We were instructed to make four copies of the notice, place ours in a window, and then pay it forward by surprising four other houses in our neighborhood.

I conspired with the kids to target favorite friends on the block and helped them with their covert ops in the dark. We’d all giggle as we ran away or hide behind a shrub to watch someone open the door and discover our gift. Being a mom, I would make sure I had put enough of the same kinds of candy for as many children as I knew resided in the house we were booing. I also added Halloween-themed activity books and other inexpensive trinkets since I knew they were about to be deluged with candy from trick-or-treating.

It was heartwarming to see that the booing tradition is still alive and well in my town. With COVID-19 still severely compromising our lives, it is nice to see people spreading a little joy – and in a socially distant way! Maybe this is the secret to this year’s Halloween dilemma. Instead of having kids go from house to house to garner treats, maybe neighborhoods should organize candy drop-offs to any house with a designated sign indicating they’d like to participate. Not only would it be safer, it would be a way to bring the community together in a tough and politically divisive time.

There’s still time to make your own little boo bags and treat some lucky children to a pre-Halloween surprise. It might just bring out the child in you.

Thanks, But No Thank You Note

I suspect that the writing of thank you notes is going the way of the mastodon.

Every time there has been a gift-giving holiday, I have had to spend inordinate amounts of time and energy haranguing my children to write small notes of thanks to relatives and friends who had generously given them a gift. Why such an easy and relatively painless task should be met with so much resistance is beyond me.

I grew up in an era when it was simply expected that if someone gave you a gift, you would respond in a timely fashion by writing a thank you note. In fact, I can distinctly remember visiting a stationery store to pick out an attractive pack of 8 thank you cards for that purpose. Ah, the stationery store. That is also a kind of dinosaur of the retail world, its fate sealed by the blinding light, not of a meteor, but of modern indifference to this social nicety.

The Emily Post Institute provides the following guidance on thank yous:

All gifts should be acknowledged with a note, unless the present was opened in front of the giver—then you have the chance to thank them in person. An important exception: Many of an older generation expect a hand-written note. Providing them with one is an appropriate gesture of respect and consideration. Also, send a hand-written note for gifts received at a shower, even if you said thank you in person at the time. (emilypost.com, emphasis added)

Despite these guidelines, the younger generation seems resistant to the idea of thank you notes. But to me, thank notes serve several functions. First of all, they assure the giver that the gift was, in fact, received. This is important when the gift is a monetary one sent through the mail or any gift that was shipped to the recipient. Sure, this notification could be accomplished by an email or phone call. But a handwritten note signifies a higher level of care and thoughtfulness in acknowledging the giver’s kindness and effort.

Modern methods of communication have been a boon to society. I love the ease of email, texting, or picking up the phone. Yet something has been lost in this era of e-cards and instant messaging. It is enjoyable to sift through the daily snail mail and find a handwritten note from a friend or loved one. One’s personality comes through in their handwriting, and it is pleasant to think of them sitting down and taking the time to think of you.

Emily Post suggests that writers make the thank you note chore more pleasant by carving out time, having a glass or wine or cup of tea, and listening to music. “Above all, try to enjoy yourself. Giving thanks shouldn’t be a chore—and doesn’t have to be if you make the effort to keep it interesting.”

Sincere gratitude is not only a gift we give others. It is a gift we give to ourselves because it makes us happier with our lives and with what we have. Writing thank you notes is a wonderfully concrete way to practice that gratitude and put a smile on the face of people we care about.

New Revolution

Tomorrow at our socially distanced barbecues, while we eat hotdogs and drink beer, most of us won’t think much about the significance of the date July 4. We know it is a day to celebrate American independence. But while watching fireworks, we don’t often think about how iconoclastic the Declaration of Independence was when it was written.

The American Revolution was a huge step in world civilization. Not only did 13 British colonies throw off the yoke of oppression, but they formed a government not seen in most of the known world: a republic. To be sure, that fledgling democracy was far from perfect. Our founding fathers’ biggest shortcoming was in allowing the scourge of slavery to make a mockery of the famous words “all men are created equal.” Yet the idea that the people themselves would be in charge of their own political destiny was a potent dream, and it spawned similar movements in other parts of the world.

Today we seem to be on the brink of another revolution. The demands for a reckoning with our racist legacy continue to grow, and the urgency cannot be denied. Forces both within and outside our borders insist on justice for black citizens. At the same time, the LGBTQ community is demanding that the rights afforded every citizen in the U.S. also be guaranteed to them. Women, religious minorities, and people of color are increasingly being elected to government office across our land. There is no going back to a time when white dominance was the unchallenged law of the land.

To be sure, there will be backlash. We see it in conservative reactions to protest in the same way we saw Nixon’s “silent majority” fight back against the activism of the 1960s. And there will also be excesses: riots, looting, toppling statues, tear gas. Once the fire of discontent has been lit, it is hard to control the flames.

Yet I believe in our country’s ability to change and grow. I believe in the next generation, who are not content to drift along with the stark inequities they see and are often victims of. This next American Revolution will not be fought upon the battlefield but in the hearts and minds of the populace and the political activism of the hour.

Let’s celebrate a better America this July 4 – with a determination to empower each and every individual member of our society regardless of race, color or creed. Let’s give true meaning to these famous words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

Father Love

“You are worth more than many sparrows.”
– Matthew 10:31

As my kids have grown older, they have become a lot more critical of their dear old parents, especially their father. My husband’s constant check-ins with them, stories and aphorisms they’ve heard dozens of times before, and (to them) fossilized views are often sources of irritation rather than edification. It sometimes falls to me to remind them of their father’s boundless love for them.

It’s Father’s Day, a holiday more about barbecues and beer than bouquets and breakfast in bed. For many, the best way to honor fathers is to let them watch unlimited amounts of TV and feed them delicious meals, even if they are often cajoled into being the grill meister. Fathers across the country today will ooh and aah over yet another tie and hold their children close, willing the years to freeze in place.

Today’s gospel speaks of a father love so great that we cannot contemplate it. The love of the Father makes our own attempts at loving others pale in comparison. As Jesus tells his disciples,

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

If we are fortunate, our own fathers are earthly models of the heavenly one. Their care and protection help us feel safe and grounded. They may be harsh at times, disciplining their wayward children in order to keep them safe. In our culture, dads are often mocked and teased because we erroneously believe they are tough and can take it.

Today let’s treasure the fathers in our lives. They are the fixers, the bad joke tellers, the men most likely to wear “groutfits” unironically. And they cherish their children “more than many sparrows.”

 

Mother’s Day Apart

It has been a number of years since I have had all my children around me on Mother’s Day. As they left for college, my kids were unable to come home for the holiday, landing as it did so close to final exams. Nowadays, I have a son residing in Texas and a daughter in New York. So it’s virtually impossible for us all to be together on the second Sunday in May.

This Mother’s Day many of us will be unable to be with our mothers or our children in person. Older mothers, in particular, are too vulnerable for their loved ones to take the chance of visiting with them in person. We can still send cards and flowers, make phone calls, and even have a virtual party with the more tech-savvy of moms. But we won’t be able to hold them in a warm embrace and thank them for their care and love.

Interestingly, the holiday of Mother’s Day was started by female activists around the time of the Civil War. These women fought for better living conditions for families, sanitation for treating the wounded during the war, and peace and healing of the divisions that created the conflict. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, one of their daughters, Anna M. Jarvis, pushed to commemorate the work of her mother and others by holding a remembrance day for all mothers. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared a national Mother’s Day. (Catherine Boeckmann and Heidi Stonehill, “The History of Mother’s Day in the United States, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, April 20, 2020)

Although we may not be able to celebrate with our mothers in person this Mother’s Day,  we can honor them with our commitment to helping see the U.S. through the scourge of the coronavirus pandemic. We can do our part by staying home as much as possible, practicing safe distancing when we are in public, contributing to those in need, and keeping our beloved mothers safe by being apart. On Mother’s Day we honor women for their sacrifices on behalf of their families and communities. Let our personal sacrifices this Mother’s Day be a testament to their love for us and ours for them.

 

Hosanna in the Highest

Watching a livestream of Palm Sunday Mass was a strange experience. Ordinarily, Palm Sunday is a day that begins with a jubilant procession into the church, the congregation waving palm branches in imitation of the crowds that welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem. The rite goes from celebratory to solemn as we recall Christ’s passion and death.

Yesterday, though, I watched a priest in an all but empty church preside over the “source and summit of the Catholic faith”: the Mass. A few singers and musicians were also present, all at safe distances from one another, in order to bring the dimension of sacred music to the event. The priest celebrated the entire Mass, including consecrating and taking in the precious body and blood of Christ. Yet none of us was able to share in that communal meal due to the pandemic that has changed so much about our lives.

We enter Holy Week – the week before Easter – in an unprecedented way: separate from each other, perhaps fearful, and most of all, carrying our private crosses as Jesus was forced to carry his to his death. In a sense, this Holy Week more than any in our lifetime brings us closer to the aloneness Jesus must have felt as his followers deserted him and gave him up to be crucified, a hideous and ignominious death.

The reading of the passion story at Palm Sunday Mass is always very emotional for me. It is such a sorrowful tale, and it reminds me of how much evil and heartbreak there is in this world. Yesterday my emotions were heightened by my fears and anxiety. Will my loved ones and I come out of this alive and healthy? Will our country survive the stress and partisanship that preceded the coronavirus outbreak and has not diminished even in the face of a common enemy? What will the world look like in a month, two months, a year?

The unreal nature of our situation will continue to be evident throughout Holy Week as we miss the opportunity to share in person the rites of foot washing on Holy Thursday, veneration of the cross on Good Friday, and most of all, the glorious celebration of Resurrection at Easter. Yet we of the Christian faith can find solace in our belief that Jesus Christ has won the victory over sin and death. Evil and war and disease will not have the last word.

May this week be one of introspection, prayer, and hope. And may the joy of Easter shine in our hearts no matter our physical circumstances.

 

 

Reaching Out

While healthcare workers, grocery store employees, truckers, delivery personnel and other essential service providers do the important job of keeping us alive and well during the coronavirus outbreak, it can be discouraging to feel that we are stuck at home, unable to go out into the world and help others. One of the most fundamental human needs is to be useful. Luckily, there are many ways for people to make a real difference during this scary and difficult time.

One way to make a difference is with our money. Organizations that help the needy and marginalized of society are always in need, but these needs have become more acute as people lose some access to food and other essentials since schools are closed and both food pantries and shelters have had to curtail interactions with their clientele. For those of us who are not losing our income due to job loss, this can be a good time to be generous to social service agencies. After all, we are not going out spending money on entertainment, and most of us are saving cash on gas. Why not pass these savings on to help the needy?

Another way to help is to provide supplies to health care facilities. In my hometown, for instance, a friend has been collecting personal protection gear such as nitrile gloves and goggles to be donated to our local hospital. Others are spending hours making masks, which are in short supply during this pandemic. I’ve even read of businesses retrofitting themselves to help increase the supply of these direly needed items.

Teens can volunteer their services running errands for elderly and immune-compromised individuals in their neighborhood. Residents can organize takeout meals for local hospital workers who are working long hours on the front lines of this emergency. Children can write cards and letters to elderly residents in nursing homes.

As a Catholic, I have had a hard time with the loss of regular Mass attendance and have struggled to keep the meaning of Lent at the forefront of my thoughts and deeds. Finding ways to reach out can remind us of the call to be a light to others, to make a sacrifice in keeping with the spirit of this penitential season.

Giving of ourselves is a great cure for the doldrums that can take hold of us as one day blurs into another. Let’s all find ways to help – safely and effectively.

Affluenza

Shoppers hit malls the day after Christmas (oregonlive.com)

 

Just before New Year’s, I read a disturbing statistic in The New York Times: “Americans have among the lowest levels of happiness and work-life balance in the developed world.”

I wish I could say I was stunned to learn that the wealthiest nation in the world was among the least happy. But I had noticed that immediately after Christmas Day, a day when many of us showered each other with countless gifts, the malls were packed with after-Christmas shoppers. Sure, some of those shoppers were returning or exchanging gifts that didn’t quite work. But many people were undoubtedly there for all the post-Christmas bargains so that they could amass more stuff.

The need to acquire more and more material goods and wealth is a symptom of an inner discontent. We tie our worth, not to our intrinsic goodness as human beings, but to the prestige of the car we drive, the handbag we carry, and the zip code in which we live. Then we wake up the day after Christmas and find that none of those gleaming presents around the tree have made us feel any better about ourselves.

No surprise that too much is never enough in a land where everything is available. Look at the levels of obesity in the United States, which are some of the worst in the world. A few years ago, I read a news story about an African teenager who had been brought to the United States to be educated and cared for at a charitable residential school called Mooseheart. The young man came to prominence because he was a star player on Mooseheart’s basketball team. Describing his early life in the United States, he described being taken to a hamburger place and being able to eat only half of the food put in front of him. He was amazed at the bounty in America. We are indeed lucky to have an abundance of food and other essentials here in America. Yet that same abundance tends to breed excess.

The other consequence of all this materialism is that we need to work harder and longer hours to acquire an affluent lifestyle. Technology, which should be seen as a labor saving boon, is instead used to connect us to our workplaces 24/7. Hard-driving workaholics are the admired ones in our society. We give lip service to family values, but our culture encourages us to leave our families and chase more money, power, and prestige.

As we begin a new decade, we as Americans should reconsider our values. It starts with each individual. I can start to recognize what truly makes me happy: spending time with family, giving to others, having solitude in which to read and reflect. I can shed the need for more material things. I can start to judge myself and others not by the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, or the jobs we hold, but by how we treat each other in this land of endless bounty.