Case one

The inspiration for this piece was a trip to the nail salon last month.

Seated to my right was a woman roughly my age, also there for a manicure.  To her right sat an old friend she unexpectedly met at the salon.

Their impromptu reunion was punctuated and loud.  For the next hour or so, every person in the place was brought up to speed on their lives, at full volume.  Here’s the rundown.

• The women went to my high school.
• Both still live in the country-club community where they were raised.
• Their children attend a private school down the road.
• Although it’s positive the school helps less privileged children with tuition, neither woman is happy with the demographic changes.  “I do not let my kids play with those kids – and it’s not because they’re black.”  “I know, I don’t want mine spending time with kids like that.  You know what I mean.”  (assuring nod)
• Both women suffer from chronic migraines.  Their medications help, but the side effect for one has been unbearable: weight gain of about seven pounds.
• The housing situation of one is precarious.  But her husband is “surely paying to keep us there after what he did to us.  We are still in the house.”  (indignant punctuation)

Here’s the rub.  The woman doing my nails during the performance is Anna.  She moved to the United States with a husband hell-bent on chasing the American Dream.  Once their feet hit this soil, he left Anna, who was expecting their first child, for a new woman and the thrill of financial opportunity.  With not a single friend or family member here, Anna taught herself the language and found a low-wage job and apartment.  She works six days each week, struggles to pay for child care and cannot afford the deductible required to repair the car window damaged during a recent break-in.

Anna suffers from intense pain from a disc injury as a result of being rear ended by a teenage driver.  She cannot afford medical insurance and has had no care for her back in years.  She sits (or leans) all day and quietly bears the pain.  Surgery would help, but it is simply beyond her reach.

When I see her she always asks concerned questions – how are you feeling?…how is work?…are you taking care of yourself?…how are your sisters, and your mother?  Sometimes she has a gift for me, or a bowl of homemade soup, because I work so much.  The last time I was in she asked me if I like egg rolls; she will make some for me.

The irony of the pity-party antics by two such privileged women in the presence of selfless Anna ate at my gut.  They have no idea how blessed they are.

In this world there is the Good, the Bad and the Just Plain Ugly.  Ingratitude is an ugly, two-headed beast.  I have seen her.

~~~

Case two

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, I saw a Facebook conversation.

Person 1: Here’s a picture of the XYZ Awesome Project I set up last year in ABC Developing Country.  ABC will soon by my new home, and I can’t wait to get back to pick up the work.

Person 2: Why not help people locally?

Person 1: This is something I fell into and love and really want to continue.  It suits my gifts and my interests.  It’s a gift to serve in this way.

Person 2: Right.  But why not do something right here where your people are in need?  That’s my question.

Black Friday indeed.

~~~

Case three

This time three years ago a guy I loved lay dying.  His life potential was great, his life choices poor.  He had taken what was not his and had not reconciled these acts with the world.

I have seen a few quiet, peaceful deaths.  All were people in sync with the Universe – giving, humble and gracious people with little excess  baggage to sort through.

The difference between those experiences and this was vast.

This guy struggled in dying in a way that was almost extraterrestrial.  His head all but spun in agony a la “The Exorcist.”  It was a frightening sight to witness.  I cannot imagine his internal experience.  Ultimately there was peace for him, but not for a long, long time.

We don’t get out of this life without a walk through the Big Balance Sheet in the Sky.  There’s a Shawn Colvin song that describes the journey of death as “the long and rugged road to kingdom come.”  This image of a traveler on her path was with me for my dear grandmother – and later for her disabled son.  It’s the same image I carry after learning my best dog is in clinical renal failure.  Somewhere on the path is Button, walking the long and rugged road to kingdom come.

It wasn’t until I saw my own father’s death that I realized that the journey down this road may be peaceful or treacherous.  The choice is ours.

As a colleague put it recently, there’s an expected moral code in this world.  When we don’t meet it, in meaningful and continued ways, we are asked to pay up, to get in sync.  It’s a costly proposition to get right with the Good.  We can do it now or face the cashier as we check out.

No one gets out without karmic reconciliation.  How it goes down is on us.

Living continuously out of sync with the Good is a different kind of ingratitude for the gift of living – but ingratitude nonetheless.  (The good news is there’s grace enough even for those who are off track.   Here’s the instruction book: start where you are.)

~~~

Case four

This last one is humbling.

I once served a non-profit organization that had its offices in a gorgeous stone downtown church.  For many years a congregation of saints gave the agency rent-free office space.

During my tenure conversation began over the homeless men who slept in the shelter of the church doorway at night.  The first few folks in the office each morning had to walk past or even step over these men to enter the building.  It was uncomfortable, especially in the early morning hours.

The discussion, held in weekly management meetings, was classic group think.  Here’s what was said in one particular meeting.

It’s scary stepping over bums to get in the building.

We need to do something about it – they need to go somewhere else.  Something needs to be done.

It went downhill fast, with leaders from across the agency chiming in.

My jaw was hanging open.  This was not our home.  We, too, were homeless guests.  Who did we think we were?  Our work was a ministry for crying out loud – what happened to ministering to our brothers at the doorstep?  How about simply bothering to call them by name?  Who were we to request they be made to disappear to ease our own discomfort?

And here’s the whole problem: I sat there stunned and did not say a word.  I fancy myself someone who speaks out – the kind who would give safe passage to a Jewish sister or a slave or anyone else on a perilous or life-saving journey.  Apparently not.

It was a teachable moment – a reach to our mission and our place within the stone mansion we were blessed to inhabit.  Yet I sat silent, struck dumb by the fear of putting myself in the spotlight, fear of going against the grain or standing out without support.

I failed our host church, the agency and myself.

~~~

What’s bothersome about all of this?  Here are my thoughts:

• Every single human being is a beloved child of God – each equally valuable and uniquely beautiful.
• None of us deserves the conditions into which we are born.  It is determined by chance.  If we are blessed enough to live in relative comfort, we don’t often ask ourselves how it came to be; instead we assume our space, rarely forced to face the tough questions. It’s luck or, as Bill Gates calls it, the ‘ovarian lottery.’
• The stuff of the world does not belong to us.  It is all one inconceivable gift – life, the “things” of life, the intangibles, the money.  We did not create it, and we hold it only for a moment.  It ain’t ours.
• In this world there is not a resource problem.  We in fact have enough for every person on the planet to live a comfortable life.  There is a distribution problem.  A former Rotary district president told our club that Americans spend $31 million each year on our pets.  The cost of preventing all diseases against which one can be immunized and alleviating world hunger for one year: $28 million.  I am guilty as charged.  (Ask my veterinarian.)
• 1.6 billion people are inadequately housed.  Where are you right now?  Where will you sleep tonight?
• Today, 10,000 people have died from hunger and hunger-related disease.  Another 10,000 will die tomorrow and the day after.  The same happened yesterday, American Thanksgiving.  It happens each and every day.
• There is a book I bought in college, “And Who Is My Neighbor?”  The answer, of course, is that barefoot kid kicking a can down a dirt road in ABC Developing Country.  Or the single mother raising her kids in Durham’s Weaver St. projects.  Or my sisters on both sides of the table at the nail salon.  We’re a family, after all.  Here’s a dirty little secret: we all share DNA.

The risk of all of this – the data, the distance, the overwhelming need – is the silent dehumanization of the masses, the loss of both the identity and divinity of the individual.  How must God feel about this?

~~~

What I’m describing is the world’s current reality.  The driving force behind this post is different.  It is our gratitude, or lack thereof.

If you are reading (or writing) a blog post on wordpress.com, you have won the ovarian lottery.  Even if your life has not been easy, you are among a very small minority of people in the world whose struggles are mere paper tigers – animal crackers in the pantry of life.  Our hyenas and lions are metaphors.  Okay, they’re real.  But take a bird’s eye view.  Will your child die tonight of hunger, or stand all night again in a makeshift tent, weary and crying, because it’s the rainy season and she can’t lie down?

It’s Thanksgiving, after all.  More specifically, today is Black Friday, the day after we give thanks, the day we spend to display our luck at the ovarian lottery.

As I write, there is a family sitting in the restaurant booth next to me trying to decide between the 80″ television and the 93″ model.

~~~

Leading with the negative, case studies in getting it wrong, is one approach.  The other is this: what does it look like to get it right?

I often tell my “green” friends that my own carbon footprint is a women’s size 10 wide.  I don’t claim to have much figured out, and I look to others for wisdom.  The same is true in regard to gratitude.

• A wise guy I knew once said, “Life is a gift; live in Thanksgiving.”

• A related quote is by W.T. Purkiser.  “Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.”

The three implied actions here are:

1. Awareness of our blessings.
2. Gratitude for these undeserved gifts…
3. …expressed through action.

Getting it right might simply be waking each day, smiling and saying, “Thank you.”

Getting it right might mean speaking to the man sleeping at the church door.

It might mean showing courage and gratitude in the face of illness and the recognition that someone else has it worse.  It might mean having the grace to accept the seven pounds and thanking God you have medical insurance, not to mention another beautiful day to spend on this earth.

Getting it right might mean affirming a friend’s aid work in ABC Developing Country, not only because he is your friend who is working very hard with Good intent but also because the kid kicking the can down the dirt road might as well be your own.  He is.  We’re family, after all.  That he drew the short straw is our problem, too.  There is enough need in this world of ours to affirm everyone who seeks to help, any place on Earth.  (My guess is the critic in this case is not working regular shifts our local Urban Ministries to help those folks in her back yard.)

~~~

A helpful principle amid the confusion is balance.  Taking on the world’s equity problems in black and white can lead to burnout, or failure to do anything at all.  The answer is not all or nothing, but somewhere in between in the gracious gray space of life.  While no one can do everything, each of us can always do something.

• There’s a guy I knew at my first job who worked in Africa.  When he came home, he continued a habit from overseas.  He wore the same clothes, unlaundered, for two consecutive days.  Most of us would wash them after one day and then wear them again down the road.  In a village with limited access to water this is logistically helpful if nothing else, and certainly a conservation technique.  Mark brought this practice home as a way of honoring his God by honoring God’s resources.  (Remember, they are not ours.)  The most at-risk natural resource in the world is water, and the problem is already in this country.  Mark has me thinking.

• I know a grandmother raising the daughter of her own deceased child.  She works three or four jobs – all for minimum wage.  For several years her mainstay has been a gig as short-order cook at our local Waffle House.  Miss Sheila stands several hours each day slinging hash.  The rest of the story is she has bad feet.  I don’t know the exact problem, but I do know she is in unbearable pain most of the time and has trouble walking even short distances.  The job requires her to stand in place, so she is able to suffer through it.  I just opened a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog.  The “best” chef’s clogs cost $59.  Think about it – $59 bucks plus tax and shipping can alleviate or lessen unbearable pain – perhaps even prevent further injury.  All it took to solve her problem was Internet access and a quick Google search.  Only Miss Sheila sure as hell cannot afford Internet service or a home computer.  The shoes arrived by mail this week.  If they don’t fit, I will return them and refer again to Google.  The effort is nothing, and the money is limited.  It keeps a low-income grandmother working and eases her chronic pain.  Think about it.

• My friend Maggie put out a Facebook request for pillows.  That’s right, pillows.  She met a woman in East Durham who did not have any for her family.  As it happened I had two pillows newly purchased at Target.  They cost five bucks each.  They were still in their plastic.  Try sleeping on a bad mattress without a soft place to lay your head.  Think of how you spent your last five bucks.  And don’t even consider giving away your old pillows instead.  Our world’s problem is not new pillow resources but new pillow distribution.  Let someone else have the good one for a change.  It’s her turn.

• I know someone who totaled her old car when a reindeer fell out of the sky one Christmas.  That’s the (near) truth.  Rather than trade in an ugly but working vehicle worth $200, she gave it away.  She literally asked some guy on the street who he knew who needed a car.  This conversation led her to a young man recently released from jail who needed a break.  The car allowed him to get a job some distance away, a job that would pay a decent wage.  He drove it for several years until it literally burst into flames one day.  By then he was on his feet and able to qualify for a car loan.  What did it cost the donor?  NOTHING.  What it gave a stranger (a brother) in need of a fresh start was immeasurable.

• Brian just returned from Haiti.  Although statistics and generalizations dehumanize, I’ll take the risk.  This is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  Untold numbers of people who did not happen to score in the ovarian lottery lack all the basics – food, clothing, shelter and any sense of security.  Even the used and worn T-shirts I take for granted will make a world of difference.  The anguish of the country’s current state is literally beyond reason.  Yet there is always something each of us can do.  After the recent earthquake in Haiti, a European friend of mine did a series of paintings she sold online as originals, prints and note cards.  She sent 100% of the proceeds to a trusted agency on the ground in Haiti.  It cost her some time, some love and a little postage to channel thousands of dollars from strangers into the hands of people providing direct relief.  Brian and friends are planning their own response.

• Finally, here are two very simple things most of us can do most any time:

1. The next time you leave the hospital parking deck, pay for the person in line behind you.  It will give hope to the cashier about the state of the world and a long-distance hug to your fellow driver.  Unless he’s there to visit a new, healthy baby, there’s a better than average chance he’s had a really shitty day.  There’s also a greater than average chance he’ll do the same, or more, for another stranger down the road.  Start the chain of Good!
2. Related, if you happen to have the honor of being in line near the single mother whose credit card is declined or whose grocery bill is a few bucks more than she has in cash, you can simply pay her bill.  She has already had a long day; help shoulder the load.  Someone helped you once, you know.

~~~

A word on giving locally versus giving globally.

Yes, we in the so-called ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ worlds are all family, each individual soul of equal worth.  To deny the VAST difference in opportunity created by repressive governments, malignant poverty and resource deprivation is an outright lie.  ABC Developing Country referenced earlier is Guatemala.  Some 50,000 people have “disappeared” in the last few decades – innocent people trapped amid civil and political unrest who have done nothing more than live in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Mass graves are still discovered.  Tell me about just two people you know who have been imprisoned or died such an unfair death and I will graciously allow you to challenge your friend who has been called by God to move his generosity across the border.

If a lighter story will make the universal point, here’s a good one.  Habitat for Humanity asks its affiliates to tithe – to send 10% or some meaningful portion of their revenue to a Habitat affiliate in a developing country that did more poorly in the ovarian lottery, through no fault of its own.  Seven years ago our friends with Habitat Guatemala, brimming with gratitude for the generosity shown them by Habitat affiliates across the globe, decided to tap into their small savings fund to return the generosity as a sign of their thankfulness and faithfulness.  They scanned the globe for the Habitat organization and the community most in need of their gift.  In October 2004, Habitat Guatemala gifted $30,000 to Habitat for Humanity in Dothan, Alabama.  And if that doesn’t make you smile, you are either dead or no longer reading.

There is enough need and enough generosity to sustain all of God’s people.  Resist being petty.

~~~

The Guatemala/Alabama story reminds me of a truism out there.  Those with the least often give the most.  The bottom line may be modest, but to give half of your food to a neighbor means far more to a father struggling to feed his family in Liberia.  It happens every day – they who understand best what it means to be in need place themselves at greatest risk by gifting things many of us with more would never dream of sharing.  My own grandmother did this, giving each of her gaggle of grandchildren a single dollar bill for Christmas or our birthdays when she had not one penny to spare and often could not pay her electric bill.  The next time you hesitate to give a stranger a dime to complete his convenience-store transaction, remember Naner Sherron Blalock.  It is only right to share resources, and love.  Life is short.  The things and the money do not belong to us; they are undeserved gifts.  Why not equalize the distribution?

~~~

It’s not surprising that people are cautious about throwing money into black holes.  There are myriad reasons.  The guy begging at the stop light might buy a beer.  World hunger is too big to tackle.  I earned this money, after all!

I will not challenge your reasons.  They are yours, and this makes them valid.  I have my own.  But I can tell you there’s a different way to give.

Microfinance and social entrepreneurship are all the rage.  And they work.  Rather than giving $100 to your local charity, consider giving $1,000 to help a smart young woman in India start a new business that will sustain her family or her community.  Teach her to fish.  Better, finance her fishing tackle, too.  It’s a lasting and worthy investment that will keep her fed and more.  Her future employees and their children and the local businesses they will frequent and their employees’ families thank you in advance.  [If Black Friday were black because every person in the world who could invested a few bucks in a microfinance project that would make a difference to her own town, I could finally stand behind the “holiday.”]

Among mainstream nonprofits there’s one doing social entrepreneurship that is a guaranteed good investment.  Habitat for Humanity gives no-interest loans to families who live in substandard housing.  In exchange for helping to build their homes and the homes of other Habitat families and the commitment to repay their loans in full over 20-30 years, families are blessed with simple, new homes they own.  Home ownership is the most reliable portal to the middle class.  Families build wealth, become tax payers and gain a legacy to leave their children, who themselves will expect (and therefore strive to become) college graduates, homeowners and more.  Habitat takes families off public assistance and out of public housing.  Habitat builds green, preserving natural resources.  Habitat’s mortgage default rate is less than two percent.

Next argument, please.

~~~

Why does it all matter?  That’s a good question!

Here’s an answer from the head, logic based in fact.  It’s Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the year 2011.  Our world is changing.  The economic world leader is slowly losing her uniqueness.  A triumvirate of world powers is slowly forming that will help distribute wealth and resources.  Water is fast becoming the natural resource most likely to spark warfare.  Clean water is the basis of life, and it’s disappearing, virtually evaporating, before our eyes.  Tens of millions of people are on the move due to civil war, oppression and basic needs.  Before another day passes 10,000 people will die because of hunger.  Another 25,000 children will die from malaria before another Thanksgiving rolls around.  And at the same time, because of technology, our world is becoming smaller.  Our problems are getting worse, and we are slowly realizing they really are OUR problems, if only for pragmatic reasons.  Forget that we are called to care for our sisters and brothers and that we are all family.  Forget the Golden Rule, the Gospels and the core beliefs of the world religions.

Here’s another answer, one from the heart.  Today I learned two things: 1) A dear friend was diagnosed with cancer.  Life is short.  Life in such a way that you sleep well at night, without anxiety or the chance you will exit this world in a head-spinning fury of karmic reconciliation.  You can’t avoid the final review.  I have seen it.  2) Just today a baby was born.  He is Emerson, my nephew.  He joins brother August as ultimate winner in the ovarian lottery having been born to two loving parents with open minds and hearts whose pastime is reading books about parenting best practice.  My friend Emerson scored.

Just around the corner in Brooklyn is an equally beautiful child, also with unlimited potential, who didn’t fare as well in the lottery.  His dad is gone.  His mother is addicted.  No one will be present to guide his education, and he will learn very young that life is not fair.  This will become motivation to change his outcome or paralyzing bitterness, perhaps helplessness.  Only time will tell.  What he deserves, however, is only the very best as the most favored child of God.  Just like you and me, that is what he is.  You might be the person intended to intervene.  You might greet him on the sidewalk and begin the conversation that changes everything, or you might look past him, deep in thought or ingratitude about your own problems.  Perhaps he is the next Einstein.  Perhaps he’s meant to help someone else down the road.  What is the cosmic cost of missing your cue?

We are richly blessed and richly gifted.  All of us, no matter how challenged, can do or say or give something that helps balance the inequity in our world.  All of us can smile or speak to a stranger.  It is a choice each and every day.  Choose wisely.  Act often.  If in doubt, don’t hesitate.  Trust that the Good will keep going in the world and that good intent is more important than the outcome.  There’s really no way to be duped – except by your own doubt.

We can’t do it all, but each of us can do something with every rising of the sun – each time we are blessed to wake again into this world.  It all starts with realizing our blessings and responding by giving thanks through some small action.  Perhaps this is what Anna and my grandmother were thinking when they did the smallest, most meaning-filled thing for me.

© Mitzi Viola, 11/25/11