Dear old and new friends, 

     Once upon a time Thanksgiving was to celebrate the end of a good harvest and that barns and fruit cellars were full, insuring there would be enough to eat through the coming winter. Today’s Thanksgiving signals not the end but the beginning of the harvest season for merchants whose customers will spend roughly 70% of the American gross domestic product on Christmas gifts. These gift sales are critical since they determine merchants’ annual profit and that of our national economy. The nation’s treasury and merchants pray that, in spite of terrorist threat, the old adage “Shoppers keep shopping” will be true this year.

     Yet we and our children already have all if not more than we need; so why buy more? And why does the celebration of Christmas or Hanukkah require giving gifts of things we don’t really need? Wait…did you hear it? That tiny voice saying, “Now Hays, don’t turn into a Scrooge and ruin our coming merry holidays.” I won’t! Yet I wish to help us explore why we do what we do and to offer some other options. We give gifts now because the ancient Romans found the winter weeks to be dark and dreary, so they celebrated Saturnalia on December 17th in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. During December’s cold, long and dark nights, this feast lifted their spirits by drinking and partying to excess. The Romans also exchanged token gifts and candles, and gifts of fruit and nuts.

     The coming of Christianity didn’t convert the climate of dark cold weather, but in the 4th century Christians converted the sinful pagan feast of Saturnalia into the light festival of the birth of Jesus, and kept the old Roman custom of giving gifts. Giving gifts at Christmas time then is a beautiful nearly four thousand year and older tradition well worth keeping. Also, our spirits are lifted with a lights festival in winter’s darkness by illuminating our town and houses with endless strings of festive-colored lights. I have a friend who puts up “inside” his home strings of countless colored Christmas lights. He turns off all other lights and loves to sit meditatively in their glittering grandeur as if at the center of a galaxy. Now there’s a wonderful tradition; turn off the other lights in your home and spend quality time lost in childlike wonder in the magical presence of your lighted Christmas tree.

     For a spouse or family member, instead going to a store for a gift, go around your home and find an old souvenir from some memorable vacation with them. Wrap it in Christmas paper and put it under the tree, and when the person opens it reminisce with them about the good times of that trip. Or recycle a cherished gift by symbolically wrapping it in holiday paper and giving it back (temporally) to the person(s) who had thoughtfully given it to you, telling them how all these years it has been such a keepsake. God help the merchants this year to survive, and even make a profit…but let us not add to the glut of our too-much-of-everything consumerism.

     Finally, while shopping is like a sedative and consumerism the opiate of the masses, we often buy gifts we can’t afford for people who have too much already. It is estimated that one-third of our holiday buying still remains unpaid for two months after Christmas! We also buy stuff people don’t need or even like, as it is estimated 18% of holiday presents (worth a staggering $12 billion) are never worn or used.

     John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the multimillionaire (in today’s dollars a multi-billionaire), learned he was to be gifted in the early 1900’s by his children with an electric car to enable him to easily ride around his vast estate. His response? “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have money."

Dear old and new friends,

     Jesus never said, “When in need—beg!” He sent his disciples off to preach the Good News without a staff, second cloak or money to live in the unshakable trust of God’s loving care. As for our daily needs, he said to pray, “Give us this day’s bread”; and the apostle Paul said, “Pray always.” Now since pray sounds very much like the English word “prey,” his disciples today whose ministries are in need often “prey” upon us as if we were wild game. As Sherlock Holmes said, “Hurry, Watson the game is afoot,” you and I are the targets in this holiday season for pious beggars from a rainbow of religious affiliations, some of whom actually come to your door begging. But I know of no single scriptural justification for Christians to become beggars, regardless how worthy their cause.

     Personally, I was unaware Christmas was so near until two weeks before Thanksgiving in the front of local stores I found the holiday Salvation Army bell ringers. This is important: The Salvation Army is my favorite organization that cares for the poor; even if I detest their guilt-instilling bell ringers. God gave us eyes to see those in need and wants us to spontaneously and lovingly respond to their needs. Our generosity to them must always be a “gifting” of our love with zero guilt! Feeling guilty, that soul-needling sense that somehow we are at fault is contradictory to loving, yet guilt is often the hidden weapon of pious beggars. They prey upon us by mail, magazine ads and from the pulpit, along with encouragements to enter all kinds of marathons for various causes.

     The Salvation Army Christmas fund-raising campaign was chosen by a group of university researchers to test people’s attitudes towards charitable giving. They chose a large store with two main entrances. Salvation Army bell ringers were placed at one entrance, and they alternated simply ringing their small bell with at other times also looking directly into the eyes of the customers, saying, “Please, give today!” Soon the store’s customers began entering by the second door; then when bell ringers appeared at that entrance as well asking for money some people actually began entering by the store’s third door marked for deliveries.

     Together with this traffic flow evidence, researchers inside the store surveyed customer’s feelings about the bell ringers. Their combined research showed clearly we hate to be asked for money, though we are usually generous. People also hated feeling that their empathy was being exploited by being coerced by direct encounters to be charitable. As Christmas draws closer, in smaller communities it is common for bell ringers to be local volunteers from churches, various social and business groups. Naturally some of these folks are personally known, so now social pressure is added to insure donating. To avoid those distasteful bell ringers without guilt I send my Christmas donation directly to the Salvation Army itself.

     Once while traveling west I stopped to visit a small, old wooden country church with a sign that said it was over one hundred years old. Entering I looked around, and my eyes were drawn to the rear of the church where against the back wall were leaning two old, unique collection baskets. At the ends of their wooden poles were faded, purple velvet bags attached with a bell at the bottom of each. In such a small country church where everyone knew everyone else, I easily could envision heads turning towards the sound of the bell on a collection bag rung by an usher either to awaken—or to persuade—a reluctant parishioner to give.

     Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher known for his defense of personal freedom of the individual. While Nietzsche rejected Christianity, I wonder if Jesus of Galilee would have agreed with the truth of this quotation of his: “Beggars should be abolished entirely! It is annoying to give to them, and it is annoying not to give them.”

 
Dear old and new friends,
 
     If you believe as you pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,” then last week’s reflection regarding God and Christ making their dwelling within you won’t have created any change in how you pray or relate to God. This is an example of a central law of life:

      Unless we change the way we think, we will not change the way we act.
 
     This is a fundamental law for not only personal change but also global. Franciscan theologian Ilia Delio says we must make loving the basic element in any change. If our desire is to change anything negative about our behavior, the place to begin isn’t with our behavior but our thoughts. And our minds likely are crowded with thoughts and ways of thinking that need to change, so let’s explore a few.

     Regardless of having seen that historic NASA photo of our earth floating in space, and the intellectual knowledge we live on a round planet, we continue to think, speak and act as if we lived on a horizontal flat earth. Since we think in “flat earth” terms daily we use expressions like “sunrise” and “sunset.” In reality, of course, our daystar the sun does not set or rise. But you object; what difference does it make if we rely on some old ancient terms? First, it’s not reality; secondly, it imprisons the concept of who we are. In reality, as evident in that NASA photo of earth, we live as a global, tribal community on an earth without borders. The consequences of this are awesome.

     Let’s consider another common experience. If you easily get angry when caught in traffic delaying jams or by rude drivers who cut in front of you, re-think: “Traffic flow often does not match my desires, and the highway can be the playground of the immature. Drive with patience and constant care.”

     If you become irritated by glitches in your computer or another device, rethink: “Technology is still in its infant stage; sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Be patient with it as with a child.”

     If you are frustrated that you aren’t as good at prayer as you desire, rethink: “Prayer is as easy as a conversation with a good friend; just let your heart talk and listen more than you speak.”

     Whatever you desire to change in yourself, examine what your limiting thoughts are about it…and then exchange those with loving and affirming thoughts.

     Lloyd George was British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922. He served in that critical position during the harsh difficulties of World War I and a national economic crisis, while dealing with the Irish liberation Sinn Fein movement and other problems. When he was asked how he always remained so cheerful and pleasant, he replied, “I find a change in nuisances is as good as a vacation.” Any annoyance or bother is a nuisance, so a change in how you see them liberates you like being on a vacation.

Dear old and new friends,

     It was a late season tornado that appeared out of a heavy rain and then thundered across a small Midwestern town leveling the houses and buildings to the ground; then departing as quickly as it had come. In the following eerie silence, the town’s survivors cautiously came up out of their basements, storm cellars and shattered overturned homes to behold their town resembling an atomic bomb disaster!

     George Sanders crawled out from under the tumbled-down broken wreckage of his home and stood silent, shocked at the loss of everything he owned, treasured and loved. His first thoughts were, “Thank God, Marie and the children are away today visiting her mother. But when they come home….” With the speed of a lightning bolt he realized, “But they can’t! They never can come home again—out home doesn’t exist!” As this thought touched every fiber of his body he raised his arms up to the heavens and shouted, “Why, Lord? What have we done to deserve this destruction of everything we’ve loved and labored for all these years? Why have you sent your wrath down upon us, Lord?”

     “You don’t need to shout, George,” he heard—or rather felt—a voice respond, as it continued, “and I am not wrathful! I never send pain or suffering to anyone. Storms, like cancers, are free, as you are George, to come and go wherever they wish!”

     In the distance came the sounds of wailing sirens of the first responders coming from the neighboring towns. “That’s the sound of help coming, George; be strong. Together we’ll begin again to create you a new home.”
 
                                                         ~~~~
 
     The George Sanders parable isn’t about schizophrenia, but Jesus’ mind-boggling revelation at the Last Supper, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (John 14: 23) And “Keeping my word” involves his requirement of loving unconditionally. His words and their implications are so far-fetched, no wonder they were not drilled into us as children.
 
                         The implications if what Jesus said was true:
                                                             
               Prayer is just conversation, as easy as thinking or breathing.
               Church tabernacles are but golden symbols of you.
               Silence and meditation develop your listening to yourself.
               Entering a domestic disagreement, remember who accompanies you.
               Discuss your problems and decisions with your Inner Guests.
               Unimaginable are the gifts of frequent visits with your Inner Guests.
               Loving is the Presence of God.
               Let your Inner Selves shine outward through your actions and words.