The blogosphere of the Left is becoming, yet again, toxic with the rancor between folks who are supposed to be on the same side politically. (I don't know why any of this surprises and silences me, 5 years after I first wrote to DailyKOS, but it does.) Examples abound and about the most charitable thing that I can say about it is that the centrists, progressives, pragmatists, loyalists are all equally at fault. Narrow-minded, defensive, knee-jerk thinking, over-emoting, and accusations of hating and fronting abound. Policy choices and disagreements are rhetorically elevated into disloyalty, to, or by politicians (especially the President), to principles, to each other.
I'm going to try not to add to it with this diary.
Instead, I'm going to tell a story.
Even in my industry, this past year we got rolled. At my office, we have lost more than 50 of the colleagues that we began 2009 with through layoffs stealth and overt. I miss most of them, a lot. Yet I still see us who remain as blessed. I like to believe that most of my colleagues, even the right-wing ones, all but the most selfish, would not contend differently. Sure some of us in my building are rich, and deserve little sympathy for being the survivors of the economic meltdown that hit the AmLaw 200 almost as badly as it hit everywhere else this year, whether they personally deserved it or not. But not all of us are rich, and certainly not me as comparatively low-positioned on the elite law totem pole as I am. That being said, we are still blessed. We have our jobs, and interesting (most of time) legal work even though we cringe about who some of our firm's clients are (it goes with the territory of elite commercial law firm), and most of us have our health and strength.
Perhaps this is why, at my office, we also have a Giving Tree.
A Giving Tree is a Christmas tree. Like most Christmas trees, a Giving Tree is decorated with lights, decorated with ornaments. However, on a Giving Tree the ornaments are not the beautiful brightly colored or reflective metallic orbs and globes and sparklies and ribbons and bows that cause those of us who are Into Christmas to Oooh and Ahhh with childish delight.
The ornaments on a Giving Tree are the names of people, written on gift tags.
I take a name from the Giving Tree every year. Last year, it was a Giving Tree for adults. Adults in the local shelters. The first ornament I picked was for a woman who wanted a warm coat, and new underwear. The suggested donation for these items was so low I felt insulted. How could she stay warm and dry with how little they said it would cost? Even in California, the amount was nothing less than shady.
So I doubled it.
Two days later, when I concluded that the ornaments were not leaving the tree fast enough, I took another tag, another person. (I also raised the specter of intra-office guilt and I am sure there are at least a few folks who have decided to avoid me as a result.) I like to think that my second recipient promptly went out and got a fedora, even though I have no idea who he is - he asked only for a hat and scarf and gloves.
I like the audacity of a fedora, and thinking about a poor man wearing it. You gotta have heart, even when you're poor. (Indeed, if you don't have heart when you're poor, you may not make it.)
Because of its presence, the Giving Tree is an annual ritual for me. For our office as a whole.
But this year it is different. This year, for the first time, our Giving Tree is filled with the names of children.
And this year, for the very first time, there is simply not enough room on the tree for all the ornaments.
The children are all from our local community. They are children whose families are clients of the local food banks, children whose families have clearly concluded that they cannot both survive and afford to give their children anything meaningful as gifts this Christmas.
I wish I could tell you that when I not only saw the chock full Giving Tree and learned that there were just as many names in the drawer waiting to replace the ornaments that were taken that I immediately thought of all the great things I was going to buy for my chosen child. But I didn't.
Instead, I remembered.
I remembered the first time my mother came to me at Christmas, long ago now. By then, my mother was in the unrelenting grip of chronic alcoholism. A broken heart will do that to you and hers had fractured through loss of her marriage, loss of her job, loss of her own mother. Her life had fallen apart and was only just managing not to take ours with hers, yet she tried her best no thanks to the snooty-assed daughter who was "smart" and "going places" that judged her and resented her and was always complaining and in her face and simply didn't appreciate that I was never NOT loved until it was nearly too late and she was dying, 30 years later) I remembered the conversation, like it was yesterday, and it hurt when I remembered the loss of dignity, the sense of shame, I saw in her face that day.
The only time I ever saw it, while she lived. (One day, I will be brave enough to post the diary I wrote upon her death four years ago now, that I wrote about her. For now, it still sits in my computer, read, cried over, yet not yet shared. I am still not Yet Ready.)
That year, for the first time, in the only timid voice I can ever remember my mother having, ever (she was not a timid woman, make no mistake; I am the occasionally in-your-face fierce Black woman survivalist I am today for a reason), she asked me a question.
She asked me if I would mind, very much, if she bought me my Christmas present on the First.
(Those who have had some experience with the system formerly known as welfare will know what that means.)
I didn't ask why, because I knew why. There was the lights. And the heat. And the telephone. And the rent. There simply was not enough money. Not to have a modicum of a Christmas dinner, a small tree, at all, anyhow. My oldest brother, being mentally disabled, would not have understood - I was the practical eldest child in my family and had been for years by then already. My younger sister? Too young to understand.
But I understood. Even though she didn't say.
Of course I told her I didn't mind.
That understanding didn't stop, however, the little girl I was still within an on-the-threshold of adulthood body from developing a nauseating, bitter, lump in my throat that nearly choked me to death for weeks, even after Christmas Day came and went and for the sake of my siblings, for the sake of my mother, I joked about how I was grown and didn't need to actually get a Christmas present on Christmas Day (not to mention I'd probably get something better anyway, so nyah.)
This ritual was repeated each of the next 3 years, until I went to college. One year, since I'd become old enough to work at 16, I bought myself a small present, wrapped it under the tree, and pretended it came from a friend. Just so my baby sister wouldn't keep asking me why I didn't have anything under there.
I remembered the one year she actually looked, at the farthest back part of the tree, thinking my present must just be lost.
Because even though at 14 I styled myself a grown woman, at least in my own mind, having been made responsible for the overall happiness of our family through sacrifice, I was still just a little girl and it hurt.
(For the record, it's not as if I got absolutely nothing, ever. After all, my father -- someone who during his working life never made more than $20K/year -- was still in my life and we did get small presents and money from him. Indeed, he gave my mother money to help support us, too, every other week. I guess that made my mom one of those welfare cheats Reagan and too many progressives get all bent about, but hey. You do what you gotta do. You have to actually live on public assistance to know that, with certainty - all these recent diaries about how easy it is to live "healthfully" on a welfare ration by folks who have never actually had to raise children on it notwithstanding. But even then my father's contribution still wasn't the same. Not to me, as a child. Because it wasn't a present under the tree. That meant something, whether or not in our liberal moralism we think it should have meant something to a child like me.)
These are memories that flooded my soul when I looked at this year's Giving Tree.
I had to step outside and cry a little, looking at the Giving Tree a few days ago. Because it made me Remember. I remembered what it is was like, being the "big girl" in a desperately poor family, and how sometimes they are asked to grow up far earlier than they should have to.
Say what you want, but Christmas is not the time a child should have to "grow up" because of poverty.
Afterward, when I finally got my act together and got tired of my colleagues heading out to lunch asking me if I was OK, I started looking at the names in earnest. I knew what I wanted to do.
I looked for the name of a child that sang to me, as I was supposed to. But I looked not for just any child. I looked for the ornaments which were for youth aged 15, 16 and 17, on the threshold of adulthood. I've heard repeatedly from charity organizations over the years that it is very very hard to get donations of gifts (rather than just gift cards) for this group: Folks just don't get the same warm fuzzies for the rusty butt ones (as my late mother would have jokingly called them) as they do for the "babies." And a toy just doesn't work at those ages.
At first, I took one child. But then the next morning, I came back to greet the Giving Tree. Which was not empty enough - there were still names in the drawer. So I took another.
That was two days ago.
Then I went home, and told my children. Who said, even as young adults 2 of whom have no jobs right now, that they were OK if I took a little more out of our Christmas to give.
So, by the time it was over last night, I'd chosen four children, ages 16 and 17. Two boys, two girls. Young brothers and sisters in the 'Hood.
I can't say I'm done yet. And I am probably going to make even more people avoid me at work today if that drawer is not yet empty.
I also did one other thing. An admittedly selfish thing. Although I'm not allowed to actually deliver them with the gifts, I wrote a little letter. I admit when I am honest with myself it is a letter that I wish someone had written to me, those Christmases when I was consumed with an unfair bitterness, too young to understand that life is not just this moment, yet too old to give the impression (since teenagers are All That, at least to teenagers) that I didn't. This is what undelivered letters to these children on the threshold of adulthood who I was fortunate to find on the Giving Tree say:
Merry Christmas, Young Man (Lady!) I hope that you forgive the intrusion of a stranger into your life with this tiny note. We old people can be pushy sometimes. But I had something to tell you. Something you may not know.
You see, you have a family that loves you. Community that loves you. They wanted you to have a smile, on this wonderful day of magic and joy throughout the world. This Christmas Day. And they knew that times were hard, and that you and your family were just trying to make it, this year. But to your mother or father, to all mothers and fathers, that's was not enough, just making it, where you are concerned. So they sent your name -- and thus a piece of your spirit -- into the world, hoping that we, as children of the world just like you, would embrace you. And we have. Through this small gift.
I may never meet you, and you may never meet me, or more likely than not we will meet in our tiny town but not recognize each other. But that doesn't matter. As a Child of our beautiful, robust, community, you are treasured nonetheless. You are important.
You are our future. The dreams that will live long after those like me are passed from this earth.
I am old enough to be your mother, and am a mother of young men and women. Young brothers and sisters like you, who have gone out into the world just as you will very soon now, to try and make it, to chase their dreams. Life's a struggle, as you probably already know - some days are up, some days are down, you'll make mistakes, and successes. Since you likely know this already, it may be a very scary time, as it was for me when I was your age, and like it is for so many who are your age. You've probably already had days in which you didn't know what you would do. I've had those, too, those days where it just seemed too hard.
Those days, when it does seem too hard to do right and to keep trying, I hope you remember that you are loved.
I wanted you to know that you are thought of fondly, even by those who do not know you personally but who still have a stake in your success because you are of our community. Whether through the devotion of your family, the love of your friends, through great days and horrible days and rich days and poor days, there will always be those like me who, even though we may never be blessed to shake your hand or give you a hug, pray for your success and your growth. Because it is through you that we as parents and adults, usually hope to create our greatest masterpiece, our most profound contribution to the world:
You. As our living legacy right here in our town.
So please thank your parents for me. They have given me a gift through sharing your name with me that this tiny token from me cannot repay - the chance to know that I might have made you smile. Even if it's from all the way across town.
And remember: You Are Important. You are Loved.
Peace and Love and Bright Blessings this Christmas Day,
Shanikka
I wrote this diary for one simple reason: to ask for folks to think about the holidays and what they can do to for just a brief moment in time show that it is not all about us, and what we want, politically or otherwise. To think about what you can do to bring some of the childlike wonder and joy of them to just a few of those for who 2009 has been a rough year, with 2010 looking no better.
There may be no giving tree at your job, making it convenient to think of others. That's no excuse. You may be yourself at the wolf's door, wondering how you're going to make it. That's no excuse either. Indeed, in my experience the most giving have been the poor - those with not even a little bit of nothing, not a pot to pee in, that nonetheless recognized what the message of the story of Jesus' miracles of turning water into wine at a small wedding and feeding 5,000 with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, really is:
Love, shared, never diminishes. It only multiplies.
So for those of us with means, even if it's less means than we have ever had before, be generous. Find a giving tree. Find a shelter. Find a church. A child. A family. And give. Give as if you were giving to your own family because, in fact, you ARE giving to your own family. You may not share a name or a house. But you share a human condition.
Keep your pocket change in your car, and the next time you see a homeless person, with their sign on the road, swallow your "best judgment" and just hand it out the window. Suppress the urge to speculate about how it will be used - we do not gain the right to judge from our privilege. Your change may be the cup of coffee that keeps someone just a little bit warmer all night long, in the cold. When you do, please do not speed off. Listen for a second for the gift you will receive in return, the gift I have heard so often, now: their heartfelt thank you. (Sometimes, it's God Bless You. Sometimes, it's Merry Christmas. Doesn't matter.) Really hear it, this time.
You have been given a gift. You just may not realize it.
Then go to the grocery store of your choosing, buy groceries - then buy them again and donate the extra set.
But even if you cannot give in a material way, because giving may be made easier by money but is not impossible without it, give of yourself. Right now food banks are collecting from those who have money, but labor is needed to actually get the food to those who need it. Spend a day, an afternoon, a power lunch boxing up food at the local food bank and shelter. Take your friends. Take your children (especially take your children.) Serve meals to the hungry, even for an hour.
Yes, you have time. Even if you don't think you have time. You do.
And if you truly want to experience joy, take a chance: open your home to someone, to share in your blessings even for just one day. This year, what started out as a Thanksgiving dinner at Shanikka's for just 5 of us turned overnight into dinner for 12 when we heard of those who we had no idea would be otherwise alone because they had nowhere to go for the holiday. Do you really know your neighbors? Your fellow church parishioners? Even those with whom you blog here? There are so many: the sick, the shut in, the lonely. Our laissez faire culture trains us as people not to admit how much we need other people in our lives. It's not supposed to matter. But it does. Does it really cost anything to reach out, to open your home for just a few hours to provide warmth and laughter and camraderie to an old friend, a neighbor, a colleague, someone else who might otherwise be alone?
If we want to talk about progressive values, I'm not sure there is a better place to start talking than things like this. Not just at Christmas time. But especially at Christmas time.
There are likely those who will read this diary as a lecture. Or lampoon its message as just furthering the commercialism and superficiality that they believe Christmas represents these days. Maybe it is. I don't know. What I do know is this. I find it hard to understand the level of emotional energy expended here on the Internet bickering about politics when just a fraction of that energy can make real change in the world, even if it is just one person at a time. I obviously do not eschew political blogging or political action. You'd not even be reading this, otherwise. And no doubt I'll be back lacing up my gloves to join the fray again soon enough.
Maybe it's an addiction.
But there are never going to be an end to political fights - there will be many days on which all of us will speculate and pontificate and theorize and debate.
But that doesn't change the fact that none of it feeds a hungry person. None of it comforts a sad child. Or a lonely person. None of it truly makes magic.
Surely, we can find time to make magic even as we are trying to change the world, at Christmastime. At Hanukkah. At Kwanzaa.
Or better yet, all the time. If we can dig deep from our pockets and energy stores for political money bombs and telephone trees, we can do this too. As progressives. Liberals. Centrists. Pragmatists.
As people, who say that we are fighting the good fight for the right reasons.
With that, I've probably used up all the time folks were spending in their neutral corners, so I'm going to shut up now.
And figure out what the hell I'm going to do if that danged Giving Tree drawer isn't empty this morning............