Tag Archives: helping others

You Awesome People of Christmas

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I was going to call this the Christmas Angel Post, but there is a group with the blog name Your Christmas Angels, founded in 2007. Good people, helping those in need during the Christmas season. We had any number of Christmas Angels this year locally. The news was full of them. Wonderful people reaching out to people who are going through rough times. People for whom buying a Christmas present for their Child is a financial struggle.

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.

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Synchronicity, good luck, or chance?

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I went to a drive through for breakfast this morning. The bill was $3.20. I had a five so I handed it to the young woman working the window and told her to keep the change, she did. This young woman and I had differing ideas on what change was. My idea of change was literal, and her idea of change was figurative. I do not know if for the young woman, a $1.80 tip is the norm for a $3.20 bill, or her command of the meaning of everyday words is not that strong. I let it slide, and I let her keep all the change plus a dollar bill. There is a reason why these types of jobs exist, and I know how hard life is hard on a paycheck like that, even if there is another paycheck to help out.

I spent my morning reminding myself the next time I go through the drive through, and that particular young woman is at the window, to be very clear about what portion of my ‘change’ is to be hers. While this thought was floating through the back of my mind, I thought about how silly I was being over the whole thing. I could have asked for the dollar bill and explained a paper bill was not change. My other option was just what I did. In general, a dollar bill is not going to have a big impact in my finances, but it may mean much more to her.

Lunch rolled around and I went to a burger place. Yes, I live high on the hog, at least I ate sitting in a building for lunch. I did not feel like fries, so I set them to the side to give to the birds later. I ate my burger, and I drank my soda listening to the hum of conversation around me.

There is a gas station right next door with fairly good coffee. For me lunch is not complete without a cup of coffee. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and there were those packets of tasty cookies right next to the coffee. One of the brands I like the taste of. The man behind the counter says what is going on? I wasn’t sure he was speaking to me, so I did not answer. He walked out from the counter as I walked up to the counter, and asked if that was all I wanted today? I said yes, just a cup of coffee and the cookies ($1.96).

The Man said it as on the house. I asked if he was sure, and he said yes, he can do that now and then. Besides he added, the coffee was getting old anyway. I saw the last drips of the coffee being made as it dropped into the pot I poured from, so I knew it was not old coffee. I thanked him, meaning every word of the, “Thank you”. He said to me, “God bless you”, and I said, “You too”.

As I was walking out of the store to my truck, I thought once again of the young woman at the drive in window. I really am blessed I thought, and today my generosity combined with her play on words, that I was paid back. Somehow things like this always work in my favor, but today I felt a little guilty because I know without a doubt the morning mix up was half my fault, and here I was being repaid at a gas station five hours later.

Little things like this happen all the time in my life over the last years. I have found the more I pay attention and the more grateful I am when they happen, they seem to happen more often and become more obvious. I can’t really say they never happened before to me. They may have happened and I was just to wrapped up in my own little world, to notice how magical daily life really is!

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