Advent considerations...

Ah, summer is just about to begin… wait, that was last week, er, month… almost half a year ago! I cannot believe how quickly time seems to be going by. We are already nearing the holiday push in our culture and in our communities. The local Starbucks has had the Christmas stuff in boxes, blocking the bathrooms for weeks now, just ready to pounce on the walls when the customers aren’t looking!

As we enter into the Advent season, I am prayerful that instead of stories about parents getting trampled at the local shopping mall to get the latest 3D Camcorder/cell phone/nose-hair-trimmer before anyone else does, that we see stories of struggling and affluent people alike, coming together and finally sharing food, housing, and other resources with one another. I also pray that Advent can be a reminder of the wonderful gift of life that Jesus represents for all of us, and that we truly celebrate by being life-givers ourselves.

If the Christmas season has become a stressful time of lying awake wondering how you are going to be able to pay off the gift bills, I invite you to let that go. I guarantee that your friends and family do not want the gifts you buy them to put you into a three month slide to your creditors. If they do (again, read my “guarantee” line), then maybe you need to have a chat with them about how Christ came into the world to a poor nomadic family and that he never dreamed that the term “black Friday” would have anything to do with sales happening for those wishing to buy cheap stuff in “honor” of him. Honoring Christ does not mean giving Visa and Mastercard a bonus. Consider spending the time you would have spent shopping for someone, just taking them out for a walk or a cup of coffee. Invite them over to your house. Give them your loving presence. But if you really want to honor Christ and give gifts, I suggest these ideas:

• Hand make something. Places like Art on a Lark in Hillsboro are great if you don’t have the materials, but still want to craft something inexpensively.

• Give the gift of a hard-working farm animal in the name of the family via a wonderful organization like Heifer International.

• For the children, consider getting gifts that are crafted by people who are fairly compensated for their work and where the work is sustainable for the earth. If we buy toys that are well made and if we buy fewer of them, as opposed to buying many, many cheaply-made toys then we are giving on multiple levels. We save the landfills from another piece of plastic; we give a gift that may get passed on to another generation, and we support good labor practices. Places 10,000 Villages in Portland, One Fair World in Salem or even Whole Foods and New Seasons are good places to find toys made in this manner.

• Consider making a donation in honor of a favorite charitable organization. Each year my family donates $50 per person into a pot, and one person is designated the authorizer of the contribution. Mira was the person last year and we donated $300 to an organization called “Witness for Peace,” an educational group that shows groups of people the root causes of migration from Central America and Mexico to the United States. Or perhaps its your church.

Can we grow up?

I will try not to link to other posts as the primary way of communicating, but as I read this I admit that I welled up a little bit. The shame that adults can inflict on children is shameful in itself.

I am reminded of the amount of time it took me to work through being singled out and ridiculed on several occasions by my second grade teacher for not living up to my "gifted and talented" status. I then spent the rest of my school years and much of my adult life believing that I wasn't good enough. Because she was the adult and should have known better.

I hope that we can read the plea of this mom and take it seriously. Our kids need us to grow up.

http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/