Things are rough right now. California is reeling under recent catastrophic wild fires and yet another mass shooting. The whole dang country is so polarized over so very many things. Everyone just seems mad or sad.
Today, our church hosted a Thanksgiving feast for the people who are part of our sack lunch program. We sat down with needy people from our community to share a meal and distribute supplies they may need. I sat next to a man named William. He’s a first-generation Irishman from North Dakota. His parents arrived in New York on the same boat, but they only met and married after they had settled in neighboring farms, just miles apart. William told me he lost everything in the fire last week, and he finds himself homeless for the first time in his 60 year life. He is divorced and has three grown kids, all between 20 and 30. He told me, near the end of our time together, that he hadn’t told them he was in this situation, out of fear that they would just not care. Gah.
It seems the height of selfishness for me to complain about anything, right? But somehow, I manage. While I’m FINALLY recovering from the one-two punch of a head and then a chest cold, I whine and moan that the time change has me feeling off balance and tired and irritable; my beloved sun shows its face for less and less time each day, as though it too is grieving the death of summer.
And yet, among all the things that seem wrong and bad and sad, I’ve felt some very welcome rays of light, brought to me through random acts of kindness. One of my Speakers League moms texted me to ask if she could bring me something from Starbucks to our meeting. That pumpkin spice latte helped me over the hump of a long and tiring week!
At Bible study, one of my ladies brought me a huge gift bag. Inside was an adorable llama-themed Christmas mug and a giant container of chicken tortilla soup. She said she knows I’ve not been well, and that this mug had made her think of me. Then, she made soup so I’d have something to put into it!
Two of my favorite people, brothers John and Hank Green (authors, YouTube celebrities) do this thing every December called Project For Awesome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_Awesome), as part of their Foundation To Decrease World Suck
https://www.causes.com/causes/23692-foundation-to-decrease-world-suck/about. I love that concept. Their video blog encourages me to try to make the world just a little brighter or easier for someone in my sphere of influence.
This week, as we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, I invite you to join me. Let’s do something unexpected and kind for a friend or even a total stranger. Pay for the meal for the car behind you in a drive-through. Ask a homeless guy outside a store if you can pick something up for him while you’re there. Pick up that pile of dog poop that some other jerk left on a stranger’s lawn. Write a quick note to someone who has brightened your day. Tell someone she has cute shoes. Let’s do something - anything - to decrease world suck this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment