What Are You More Than?

Many years ago when visiting a new mom, my first question was about how she was doing and not about the baby.  She burst into tears.  “Thanks for remembering that I’m more than a mother,” she said while I merely nodded and tucked away two kernels of truth – we are more than our current headline and sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

My question was not intentional.  It was more that she was there and the baby was not and I had already seen and held the baby.  But obviously my question hit a needed note. 

You’ve been there yourself.  Whether your significant event was celebratory like a baby or a wedding, or a difficult issue such as a divorce or disease, your world, at least for the moment, revolved around that circumstance and you got used to hearing and answering the same questions from everyone in your circle.  This blog actually began as a series of weekly emails to my friends to keep them updated on my job search and later morphed into these musings.

The flip side of those common questions about our current situation is what we ourselves bring to social dialogues.  If all we talk about is our joy or our misery then we have allowed a tragedy or a happiness or a cause to define us. We can become so engrossed in our career we may not realize that our headlines consistently shout what we do, forgetting that what we do is not who we are. 

In those times in our lives when we are in-between dramatic headlines we become used to conversation that doesn’t require us to continually bare our souls or repeat the litany of the latest update.  This season of parties and gatherings, I’m going to try to remember that I am more than my current situation and so are those with whom I am breaking bread or sharing a drink.  So, if we meet and my opening question is, “What was the best gift you ever gave?” please don’t think I’m not interested in what’s going on in your life.  I’m just giving us both a conversation holiday.

Marilyn

 

A Bag of Groceries

The year that I lived in a boarding house I shared a bathroom with 4 people and a kitchen with 6.  My $10/week corner room with 2 windows was large enough for me to have a single bed against the wall to double as a couch, a desk and chair, a dresser, and a small stuffed chair with a side table and lamp.  Because there was no closet, it also held a $50 metal wardrobe from Montgomery Ward’s.

I was working fulltime and going to school fulltime.  Well, I went to classes when I had gas in the car to get there.  Money was scarce for me and the others in the house.  Everyone was busy, and while we were friendly we were not friends.  Since we were all going to be there on Thanksgiving we decided to have a potluck.  Hotdogs were on the menu. 

Wednesday after work I made Jell-O and as I was sitting down to play the piano in the parlor, the doorbell rang.  When I opened the front door no one was there.  I looked up and down the street but it was empty, and then noticed on the porch a brown paper bag with my name written on it in black marker.  I took the bag into the kitchen and started unpacking it.  In it were all the fixin’s for a Thanksgiving dinner.  My neighbors and I had a lovely traditional meal thanks to someone’s generosity. 

A couple of weeks ago I got the mail from my box in the lobby and as I was riding the elevator up to my condo, I thumbed through the envelopes.  There was one that I initially thought was an apply-for-a-credit-card type solicitation, but something seemed different.  Like opening the door long ago, inside there was a bag of groceries in the form of a gift card to Jewel for $100 from “a fan,” someone who knows that money is tight once again.

During the decades in between the two different doorbells of groceries I have done some things to pay forward such kindness and charity.   I’m sure not enough.  I have also tried to work on receiving such surprises with grace, since I’ve learned that for me, it is more difficult to receive than to give.

Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.”  If you receive a gift this season, receive it with kindness.

If you have extra to share, I ask that you consider the organization for which I work.  By donating money that helps to provide entrepreneurs with needed financing, you support local small businesses.  Visit our website, www.accionchicago.org and click on Donate Now or check out our upcoming event, Taste of Accion, and purchase a ticket (half is a donation) and come and meet my great colleagues and taste and see firsthand the food, beverages, and products of some of our clients.

Why consider us?  Those we serve are unable to secure financing from traditional sources such as banks because their need is too small or they have poor or no credit.  Qualifying for a loan from us validates a small business owner’s confidence in their dream. Opening or expanding a small business gives the owners and families a sense of security and pride.  The businesses stabilize neighborhoods, and as those enterprises grow, our clients hire others.  Your donation of any size is like a bag of groceries for our clients.

In these days when, like me, so many are still struggling, and when we continue to see greed in so many places, it is nice to be part of a company that is doing well while doing good. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Marilyn

A Taste of Home

When I was in college only those students whose family lived within a 2-hour drive were allowed to leave campus for Thanksgiving.   We had classes on Friday and rumor had it there once had been terrible accident involving students rushing to return to school.

For freshman that meant that this was the first holiday we were not with our families.  Conversations over Wednesday supper in the dining hall were unusually subdued.   Every dorm had its monthly meeting that night as soon as the doors were locked at 10pm. 

We were pretty quiet as we gathered in the main living area of Williston, the oldest dorm for women at Wheaton, a castle-like building complete with turret.  The agenda for that evening’s meeting included the usual business – reinforcing some rule, reviewing the calendar for the next month, etc. – and some holiday devotion.  As soon as the meeting was over and we returned to our rooms, the screaming and shouts of joy started.  During the meeting the Resident Assistants had put a package on everyone’s bed, a package from home.

Brown wrapping paper was quickly torn off and boxes opened.  “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” could be heard.  “Look!” a roommate would say as she lifted out a picture of the family, or a new pair of gloves, or a drawing from a younger sibling.  Enclosed letters were skimmed and set aside for later devouring.  The most common phrase, however, was “Try one!”

Almost all boxes contained a taste of home, some favorite cookie or pastry that meant family, good times, and holidays, treats that evoked traditions and lovely memories.  We gathered in hallways and lounge areas.  Conversations were lively as we shared stories as well as sweets.  Fashion at this impromptu party included new ski caps, fuzzy slippers, and, in my case, a brown and white silk scarf which remained in my wardrobe until just a few years ago. 

New types of bonds were forged as we discovered more in common and many worldviews expanded as we heard about diverse customs.  Sure there were tears and feelings of longings to be with loved ones, but the surprise taste of home made us realize that we were simply spending that particular holiday with a newly formed family. 

What would you want in your box from home.  Or, perhaps more important, think of a surprise gift you once received.  Anne Morrow Lindbergh said, "One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay "in kind" somewhere else in life."  What would you send to someone who needs a reminder of a special connection?  It’s not too late to ship off a box or a card or extend an invitation.  And if you're concerned about people traveling, you could even follow the 2-hour rule.

Marilyn

 “Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see how good God is.” Psalm 34:8

Now, Where Was I?

Interruptions.  Distractions.  Detours.  Such things can break our focus, derail our plans, or take us off course.  Sometimes it is easy to pick up where we were, resume our train of thought, conversation, or task, but often a disruption sends us in a new and different direction.  Even a scheduled meeting can mean that we don’t get back to where we had been or what we had been doing before heading off to that appointment.  The brief hiatus this Monday Muser announced in September became longer because it took a while to regain my weekly writing rhythm.

The number of and variety of interruptions possible in our world today seems to be increasing.  Our phones, which no longer keep us rooted in one place, now notify us that we have email.  Even as we watch one news story a ticker tape runs across the bottom of the TV screen streaming with other headlines.  Ads pop up, robocalls sell and tell.  The outside world can bombard us and interrupt us 24/7.  I found a statistic reporting that the average worker experiences 50 interruptions a day and that seventy percent of them have nothing to do with work.

One result of this new norm of expected and accepted interruptions is the fact that we have become an immediate people.  We seek immediate gratification, answers or solutions, and think that we must act right away.  This is reinforced by movies that resolve complex issues in two hours and by the ‘call now to receive a bonus’ commercials that interrupt the plot.  In the middle of dinner we can ‘Google’ to look up the exact year that Tootsie Roll was introduced to prove our case and resolve a conflict.

Another by-product is that we are constantly in-touch and in-the-know both in our own circle and, through round-the-clock news coverage, with the world at large.  Those not by a computer or TV all day or who leave their cell phone turned off, may not realize how addictive a beep, vibration, or ‘this just in’ message can be.

Because of this immediacy norm, we have a generation that hasn’t experienced busy signals or a boss’s closed door.  It is easy for any of us to become our 3-year old selves, unable to understand the concept of ‘wait.’  Just monitor your frustration level the next time it takes longer for a website to open up.

Still one more result of our instant society is that we invent ways around the interruptions.  Record a show and fast forward to the end, use In-Demand and avoid commercials all together.  Missed calls go to voicemail.  We also find ways to reframe the inevitable intrusions into routine conveniences such as the ability to answer the phone with the touch of a button on the steering wheel. 

I rant about this today because tomorrow we finally bring to an end what has seemed to me a very long intermission.  I have not experienced this election cycle as a process that we are privileged to share.  Rather it has been a lengthy disturbance that has not energized, and from what I hear when I do tune in, I am not alone in this reaction. 

We all know that elections matter, that we should be engaged and informed, but it has become awfully hard to balance our immediate lives to the yearlong campaigning.  Whatever side of the aisle calls to our values and priorities, let us all exercise our right to vote, deal with the results, quickly adjust to whatever unfolds, and together find a path back from the detour of partisanship.   

Of course, the larger problem with all of this is summarized by C.S. Lewis when he wrote, “The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.”

I hate to interrupt a good rant, but, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go muse about that.