When I was younger things were pretty tough. Christmas presents usually consisted of clothes for the second half of the school year. It is wonderful to see people trying to have  a better Christmas for their children by taking advantage of the layaway programs some stores offered this year.  Often making those payments for Christmas ends up meaning mean not paying for something else equally important.

I want to say thank all the people who paid off layaways for children this year, and previous years too! If this includes you, you set an example for most of us to follow. Usually at this point some posts run off into how this giving should go on all year around. I know I am guilty of this line of thought in previous posts. This year though I prefer to bask in the moment of being grateful there are so many caring people living around us. They cared enough to help their neighbors put on Christmas for their children.

I saw the Pope was beating the drum of stopping commercialized Christmas, saying it is time to get back into the real meaning of Christmas. On some levels I can agree with this though really I can not. I wonder if the Pope ever steps back and looks at the Vatican’s financial reasons for the season, or about giving out instead of taking. I have never observed money being given away at Church services.

Christmas means something else altogether for those wonderful people who helped others this Christmas, and to those who received the help. I would rather concentrate on these people. I think modern Christianity has done enough to take religion out of religion. The Vatican is not in a position to be telling the world how it should be done. We have a lot of good people out there who did a lot of good for their neighbors this year. In the process these generous folks gave away (shared) their own good circumstance without anyone telling them how it should be done. These folks did a great job of sharing!

When I think of EcoHeart, a better example can not be found than these Christmas Angels. For a few days this Christmas, families everywhere,  this years Christmas Angels were making it possible for those less fortunate to have a little extra money in their pocket the morning after Christmas. More often than not that extra money is household, food,  or medicine money redirected to buying Christmas presents.

A little bit of doing good goes a long way. I am grateful to all of you who really see the reason for the season. I really hope you are one of them. Whether it was dropping some dollars into the Salvation Army Bucket, giving money to a Homeless Person, or helping someone in another meaningful way, people like you are my reason for the Christmas Season!

Whether this is something you do as part of your day, or you are motivated by the Christmas Season, I hope each and every one of your coming days are filled with bountiful returns. Looking beyond the formal religious significance of Christmas, people helping people makes the world a better place is a great aspect of Christmas! A better place is what I hope the world becomes.

I am going to end this post now, before I find myself heading off on some tangent which I know I am quite capable of doing. Let me say it again, this time for everyone who does not have a public platform to speak off of: Thank you Christmas Angels for bringing so much happiness into so many peoples lives this Christmas! I am honored to know you as neighbors, and hopefully friends. Your generosity and caring means more to the people you helped this year, and will live in their memory longer than any sermon heard  in  Church on Christmas morning.

Other times I gave money because I felt as if I had been wasting my life recently, and donating money was a sort of equalizer. This thought arrived in the famous church tradition of ‘Paying for Salvation’. Here is how the idea was introduced to me.

Pirates on the high seas get old. After some years Pirating was hard work and mortality was setting in. Successful Pirates would suddenly find God (as if God was lost) and build a church atoning for their sins. In their minds and/or the greed based thinking of the Church, money to build one church equaled one ticket to heaven.

I too thought it was my obligation to give money to the Church. After all the building needed maintenance and the leaders needed clothing and feeding. For a couple of years we both were happy. I felt like I was doing my part, and whatever church I was attending had a few extra dollars in the coffers.

I listened to a Minister talk one Sunday morning about his trip to another city the day before. I don’t remember much of the story, but I do remember him talking about the steak dinner he ate while there. The few dollars I was going to give were not enough to pay for his coffee and the slice of pie he had for desert.

I don’t remember the point of his talk that day, but I remember his meal story. After that I made it a point to give money to people or causes where I knew I could make a difference. Giving money for Toys at Christmas or providing Thanksgiving meals for poor families felt good. My few dollars would make a tangible difference.

As the years went by, same as always, the need swelled. In the same small town needy families had grown from a few hundred during the holidays to several times that number all year. Suddenly my piddling few dollars did not seem to go very far.

I know now, without a doubt, poor people are a fact of life and the label “Poor” resides on a sliding scale rather than a balanced scale. There are poor people where you live, whether you live in an oil rich city or in the middle of the desert. I also learned something else about giving along the way.

Money is and always has been just a thing. There is nothing ‘giving’ about money. Whether you or I throw a few dollars at our favorite cause has little effect on the cause itself. No matter what the cause, if it is about people, there is never enough money to it to fix it.

If any cause has more than enough money in a given year, one of two things will happen. Either the standards of the cause will slide allowing more people to be included, or management will spend more. Either way the money is used up, and more is needed.

There is a better solution than dropping money on a collection plate, box, or sending a check to your favorite charity. Donate your time! Donating your time is the highest level of making a difference. Let those who are wealthy, or corporations donate money. If you want to know if you are really making a difference, donate your time.

Each of us has the ability to make more money if we give some away. We can take on a second job, work overtime, sell a possession, or do without. The most valuable item we have in our life is our time. There is no time bank that balances our time account. Giving your time to something you believe in is far more valuable than any amount of money you can give.

The wealthiest people in the world know this and they donate their time. They also donate large sums of money, but it is their time which really makes the difference. If you want to make a difference in your community, donate your time. I guarantee once you get over the idea that you really are not doing much, your thinking will change.

Instead of giving a few dollars and only having a fuzzy idea of where and how your money is being used, giving your time lets you see how you are making a difference by the impact you are making. Because it is your time that you will never get back, you will be more particular about how you donate it. People you help will appreciate you more than they will appreciate a few faceless dollars too.

It is important we do these things. Making life better for, or helping someone make their life better, in turn makes our life better even though we may not notice any immediate change.

There are differences in how the act of, ‘Doing the right thing’ is carried out. We do not always do the right thing because we want to. Often we have ulterior motives behind our actions.

We occasionally ‘Do the right thing’ because it makes us feel good. Whatever we do is no real hindrance to us, or our time, and we know it will make a difference, so we do it. The feeling of knowing we did something for another is a good feeling and above all else we like to feel good.

Other times we ‘Do the right thing’ because we will feel guilty if we do not. Someone asked of us some help, and we feel guilty because we are thinking of saying no. We do not say no because it is simple request and well within our ability. Doing it keeps us from feeling guilty.

In public with people we know around we ‘Do the right thing’ because we do not want to give the people around us a bad impression. If they observe the need and asking, and we refuse what may they think of us for saying no?

If you have a belief system you are likely to ‘Do the right thing’ because you think there is a reward in doing the right thing in there somewhere. Perhaps it is a test, or maybe it is an angel or God in disguise coming to see if we really are who we appear to be. Possibly we think that doing good works here on earth will add to our benefits due, maybe giving us a little more than the person next to us when we reach heaven or paradise.

While all these reasons have there merits, I propose there can be real reward in saying no, when we are asked to, ‘Do the right thing’  and we do not want to. Maybe we are better off in our private world where we are lone with ourself. Maybe we are on our way to somewhere and we already feel about as good as we can feel, and the distraction of doing the right thing would only darken our otherwise bright and bubbly mood.

It is possible that we need not feel guilty about anything we do not do. Maybe we were asked if we would ‘Do the right thing’, but we choose not to and we do not feel guilty about  refusing at all. Even if it is a test of sorts imposed upon us by some immortal being or a directive of one, that should not be reason to stop what we are doing in our own self centered selfish world, and reach out a hand to a stranger in need because we think it is a test of some sort that we must pass.

Even if it were a test, even if our family and friends are watching our reaction, and we think it may make us feel guilty later on, or ‘doing the right thing’ will make the world a better place for a few moments, these are not the better reason for ‘Doing the right thing’.

The better, and the best reason for doing the right thing is this: Do the right thing because you want to, nothing more. Do the right thing whether you think God will reward you or not. Do the right thing because you want to whether or not your family and friends are present to see what you will do. Do the right thing because you want to no matter who you think might be in disguise asking you.

Doing something only because you want to is the highest form of giving. You are ‘Doing the right thing’ not because it will make you feel good. You are ‘Doing the right thing’ not because you will be embarrassed if you do not. You are ‘Doing the right thing’ not because it may be a test of your faith or humanness.

Doing the right thing because you want to is the highest reason to do the right thing. You are not expecting reward, punishment, accolades, or suspect it is a test. You do the right thing because you want to. Doing the right thing because you want to brings real meaning to what you do when you choose to ‘Do the right thing’.

When you ‘Do the right thing’ because you want to, you have freed yourself from those hollow props and supports most of us are prone to using. You have freed yourself from being artificial, shallow, and a handful of other reasons that make ‘Doing the right thing’ something less than the ultimate kindness it is.

When you are out and about and someone asks you for something, think before you act. Find the right reason to ‘Do the right thing’ before you act. Both you and the receiver(s) will feel empowered in the act if the reason is the best reason – Because you want to. Settle for no other reason than ‘You Want To’ the next time you are asked.

In front of me was a young woman with two little girls, the five year old and a younger girl of perhaps four. The three of them were ahead of me, standing around the cart, waiting for their turn to check out. Suddenly the girls, in a flash of impulse saw the flowers for sale display a few feet away.

The flower stand was circular perhaps and eight foot circle, and composed of four tiers with the fourth tier a circle large enough for a single container holding three small bunches of flowers. The stand was filled with flowers, either no one could afford them, or it had recently been restocked.

The little girls kind of skipped and hopped over to the flower stand. The youngest girl was content to stare at one section, admiring the colors and moving a few feet to repeat her observations. The older girl however had a completely different approach.

The older little girl was looking at all the flowers, re-arranging the their positions in a sequence that appealed to her sense of where they should be. After she finished moving the flowers around she started taking out loud to individual flower bunches and telling her mom to look at how pretty each bunch was. Almost laughing, she would pick up a bunch of flowers, say something to each bunch of flowers, and put them back in the container they came from.

The younger girl bored of the flowers, and went back to the cart, and sat on the bottom. Her shoes were worn, and a few sizes too big for her tiny feet. She didn’t seem to notice though, so I think she was used to hand me downs, fitting correctly or not. I then noticed that no one in the small family of three were dressed very well. All their clothes were well used and more than a little worn.

The older girl, was absolutely bubbling by now, flitting about the flowers, taking them off the stand, hugging them, saying something to them and putting them back. She reminded me of a honey bee collecting pollen, or a humming bird sucking up nectar. She was lost in a her own little world she had created with nothing more than a stand of cut flowers in a grocery store.

The magic of her enthusiasm over the flowers pulled me in, and I asked the Mom if it was okay to give the little girl money to buy a single bunch of flowers to bring home. The Mom was not sure how to respond and mumbled something that did not sound like a firm no.

I gave the little girl five dollars and some change to make the tax on the flowers at four dollars and ninety-nine cents a bunch. I was called to another register and it was time for me to check out. I paid my bill, and left the store, wondering if the little girl had bought her Mom, her Sister, and herself fresh flowers to take home, or did she decide to save the money and use it for something more important like proper fitting shoes for her sister.

I would like to think her Mom told her to pick one bunch of flowers for herself. If so, when they wake up tomorrow morning, the flowers will be there there to bring a little sunshine into their lives. It does not take a lot of time, effort, or money to make a positive change in a life.

Fishing is like any other sport or pastime, somedays everything falls into place, and you catch a lot of fish. On other days, perhaps most days, not everything falls into place and not many fish are caught. When these days occur, and they do same as baseball or other statistical sports most days are not dream days for catching fish. I imagine if fishermen caught all the fish they wanted to, they would become bored with fishing.

Going to a new lake is always a new challenge, everything looks the same, there is water and there is shoreline. Where is the best fishing spot for this day? Everyone has their own best choice, and some people make better guesses than others. The best choices have the opportunity to catch the most fish.

I enjoy what I observe most of the time. Fishing at a lake with interesting scenery or wildlife is satisfying. Some times I see things most people will never get to see, like the water train on the right left.

Other times I enjoy am enjoying the view and am pleasantly surprised by something I did not expect would happen, such as these people on horseback, out enjoying a spring afternoon. They were a ways from where I was sitting pretending to be seriously fishing, and there appearance was a pleasant distraction.

Of course then there is the scenery all by itself. In June when the monsoon season hits, starting about one in the afternoon the clouds start rolling in. That is a not so subtle signal that whatever you are doing, you may want to finish up pretty quickly. Usually by three o’clock, the storm breaks loose.

Every once in a while fishing actually happens, and life is really good. Those few hours are busy and little of my time is spent watching what is going on around me. Before you start thinking the was all fun and no work filling coolers with Carp, I want to define the purpose of fishing on its most basic level.

While someone may think I had a blast catching all these fish; okay I did, it was fun! There also was a second more serious reason to my fishing. The reason the Carp are in two coolers is because of where they are going. One cooler of fish went to the south end of town to be used to feed, a few Dogs, Ducks, a Goose, and a few Cats. The second cooler of fish went to the far north end of town to a Dog rescue center to become, ‘Doggy Stew’.

So when you see someone out being lazy snoozing by the waters edge with fishing pole close by, remember they may there on serious business and not just to relax and enjoy the day away from it all! Yeah right, I almost believe that sentence, and I wrote it.

If you find yourself wondering how to do something for others, look at what you love to do. For myself, I am happy to have found service in something I love to do. Perhaps there is something in what you love to do that serves others too?

Before he retired, I used to occasionally run into a man named Johnny, who I did not particularly like. I thought Johnny was intentionally course, rude, and generally dressed worse than a second hand store could manage if he raised his standards enough to shop at one. His clothing of course was probably better than I dress now, but that is a different topic.

Johnny did one amazing selfless act twice a year that made me feel very small twice a year. Twice a year Johnny received a work bonus check, usually between One Thousand and Fifteen Hundred dollars – after taxes. It was what Johnny did with his bonus check that both amazed and humbled me. Twice a year Johnny would reduce his bonus check down to an equal amount stack of twenty dollar bills.

Johnny would get into into his old tank of a car and head down to a city park where homeless people hung out. Johnny would park his clunker and get out. Starting at one end of the park Johnny worked his way around handing out twenty dollar bills to every homeless person present. If he had any cash left, Johnny headed down to the next park where he knew more homeless folks hung out.

Besides myself, and perhaps to to four other people who could stand being around Johnny, no one of knew he willingly gave away between two and three thousand dollars a year without a second thought. I asked Johnny, ‘Why?’ the second year he was about to go donate, and he said something to the effect of, ‘They need the money, and I do not’.

Around the same time period, a small local group raised over Ten Thousand Dollars through car washes, bake sales, etc. They tried to donate this money to a homeless shelter, but there was a problem over who the donating was, and the money was rejected.

They were not criminals, gang, or drug selling criminals, simply men and women who shared a common vision of helping. Eventually on the fourth or fifth attempt they found a homeless shelter that was happy to take their money. The story made the local news, not because a small volunteer group tried to donate such a large amount of hard earned cash to a homeless shelter, but because of who they were.

Back to Starbucks and the present. I want to say Starbucks is a great company. They do great things for their employees, and they serve hot tasty drinks to me on a regular basis. CNN is a great news service. I depend on CNN when I want to see the news at any odd hour of the day or night.

But why is this, ‘Pay It Forward’ at a Starbucks, McDonalds, or other giant…gaining this type of attention from news behemoths like CNN? Does it really make us feel good to pay for another persons coffee at a drive through when those folks we are paying for are more than able to pay for their own drinks and treats? Is this a new American compassion, our new American public display of selflessness and helping?

How about reinvigorating ‘Pay It Forward’ with real meaning rather than a false feel good? How about doubling your order, whatever it is and giving your second order out to a momentarily fortunate homeless man or woman you spy hanging out on the route you are driving? I bet they really would appreciate a hot, tasty, expensive cup of coffee. I bet they might even be grateful? Don’t expect them to pay it forward as generously as you did when you spent a few ‘spare’ dollars, and a minute of your time to ‘Pay It Forward’.

The small group that tried to do a charitable service I wrote of earlier broke up. The negative publicity sent them back into the shadows, or I should clarify, there was little future publicity about them.

Be on the lookout for Johnny though, he may be out there doing his thing at the same time you hand out your second cup of coffee. You would not want to mistake Johnny for a homeless person, even though he may look like one. Johnny doesn’t need the handout, and probably would not bother with a thank you if you asked for a sincere one. But you might get on television….

Those people I give money to made some choices in their life, that either I was not required to make the choices they did, or I made a different better choice than they did. I would like at times to think I made better choices, but I do not know that is a true statement. I think it is closer to truth to say I chose not to go as deeply into the results of bad choices I may have made in my life as others, now less fortunate did.

I was leaving a museum a few weeks ago, and there was a man panhandling as people were walking to their cars. He asked me for any change I might have. I looked into my wallet and I had two bills, a five and a one dollar bill. Neither was change, but I recognized the shake in his hands, and I pulled out the five and gave it to him. He mumbled a quick thank you, and lurched and trembled off to get his bottle of salvation.

Yesterday I was leaving a Borgstore parking lot, and there at the parking lot exit sat an old woman in a wheel chair pulled onto the medium ‘selling’ paper flowers for a dollar each. To make her lot in life worse, she was missing one leg at the knee. Her clothes were not warm enough for the weather. I drove right past her to the frustration of a passenger in my truck. I did not give her a single penny, or even trade a dollar for a paper flower.

It did not seem out of the ordinary for me, but the person with me could not believe I didn’t give the old woman some money! There she was begging in the middle of the street on a cold and windy day, and I drove right past. I mentioned I had given five bucks to a wino last week at a park. It made perfect sense to me, why I acted the way I did, and I started to explain my thinking.

The Wino at the park could be me except for a few better made choices on my part, and luck. He probably had a shelter he could eat at, and a place to sleep. He would never be able to hold a job, nor will he quit drinking until he is dead, or committed to a place he can no longer drink. To not give him a little money when I had extra would be cruel to my thinking. He needed money to drink, and all he could do was beg for money to drink with.

The Woman in a wheelchair with one leg missing was better off by far. She could not have put herself on the medium because she was too old, and with only one leg it would have been impossible to do by herself. Her clothing was not old or dirty, and I thought she was not dressed correctly for the weather by choice. Her wheel chair was fairly new, well made, and of good quality. Someone had posed her in place there on the medium. Of the five or six cars in front of me who all gave her paper money, she gave a flower to only one, but she took money from all of them.

In my view of both situations, the Woman in the wheel chair was able to earn an income from doing something other than blatantly begging for money. The Wino on the other hand was in pain from lack of alcohol, and was reduced to begging to get money for what his body craved. One person was physically sick, and the other was only handicapped. One person was a beggar and the other had found an easy way to make a good living with little effort. My choices made perfect sense to me. The Man needed and the woman wanted.