For the last twenty or so years, our family has celebrated Christmas on or around Christmas Day. We have a shot gun approach. If we land somewhere in the latter part of December and before New Years, we were good.
Families make this necessary. Children and grandchildren off and involved. Responsibilities that keep one away from home or homebound. It is a part of a growing and expanding family. One cannot be shortsighted or selfish enough to require it to be just on the 25th. I have been surprised at how many couples could never get this simple concept.
So, they squandered their holiday with unpleasant relatives or demanding parents. They found themselves getting depressed and dreading holidays. The easiest money I ever earned was suggesting they dynamite those folks off of "their" Christmas Day celebration. And what joy began to shine on their faces when they realized they could give themselves permission to reserve a good day for a good gathering with folks they enjoyed.
My basic philosophy in life is that disagreeable people should be left alone to savor their own misery. They refuse to enjoy life and they should not be permitted to drag others into their swamp. Just because they are family does not give them an entitlement to continue to ruin our lives. I have the joy of being a part of a joyful family all of whom I enjoy spending time and holidays with. Sadly, others cannot say that about their family. So, I encourage to push those folks to the periphery of their holiday celebration. They are not to be neglected--although it would fit into their mold of misery. The more miserable and difficult they are, the further the gathering is from Christmas.
But we have also learned that as important as family time is, Christmas is really about receiving the renewing gift of the love of God in Jesus Christ, and reproducing such love and giving in an impoverished world of pain and grief. So, over the years our tree has had fewer gifts under it for ourselves and more gifts given to others who were not family.
This year, our church, missionaries, Salvation Army, and a little girl whose father is in prison, and a family our Sunday School class was helping will get our giving. There is also a gift for my mom who has instilled in our family a tenacity of spirit, a durable faith, and a love of laughter. And it goes without saying that there is something for our youngest child at home, and our grandchildren.
Christmas. It is my favorite time of the year.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Why them, Why now?
Duesenberg, Cord, Studebaker,Packard, and American Motors.
Some of those names anyone would recognize, some others perhaps not.
Each one was at one time a car maker in the United States. Each one produced a fine automobile for a time, but each one fell out of favor with customers for one reason or another and each one failed. In those days, government had too much to do to bail out each one. Government also did not succumb to the myth that any one sector of the economy was so vital that it could not fail.
Only recently with Amtrack and Chrysler has there been sufficient lobby power to make these ineptly run businesses indispensable. Interesting to me is that mining, steel, and textiles have slowly been shuttered in this country. Government did not step in to bail them out. Rather they let the market take its course and today we survive rather well with the changes such inaction has brought. Buildings still get built, heat still gets generated and yes, we still have clothes to wear.
What outgoing President Bush has done is give away the keys to the treasury to an arrogant elite whose sense of entitlement has impoverished us all. GM has believed its future is so entangled with the United States they cannot imagine one without the other.
I can. In fact, when the President gave GM and Chrysler good tax dollars to follow the billions they had squandered, I decided that I would not buy another American labeled automobile. I would assume that Ford will quickly follow which would make it a clean sweep. I am so incensed by such indefensible and irresponsible behavior, I will scratch these folks off my buy list. The fact is there are more brands to pick from now than can survive in a growing world market. As best I can tell, only us and the British have been foolish enough to attempt to prop up failing automotive efforts. Now RR is a BMW brand and Bentley a VW brand, and on and on it could go.
In the history of any technology, innovation and competition kept businesses alive and those who started the race often could not stay in the race. American car makers got lathargic and fat with mediocrity and greed and customer indifference. We kept telling them in surveys their work was shoddy and boring, we kept telling them we were replacing them in our hearts, and in showrooms across America their uninspiring creations stayed. Only arrogant, stupid people don't listen and they didn't.
So, now, in this United States of America where we have huge, huge problems with access to health care, growing unemployment, world wide political instability and rising national debt and deteriorating infastructure do we have the surplus tax money to prop up poorly run industries that will fail before 2009 is out.
Only in America.
Some of those names anyone would recognize, some others perhaps not.
Each one was at one time a car maker in the United States. Each one produced a fine automobile for a time, but each one fell out of favor with customers for one reason or another and each one failed. In those days, government had too much to do to bail out each one. Government also did not succumb to the myth that any one sector of the economy was so vital that it could not fail.
Only recently with Amtrack and Chrysler has there been sufficient lobby power to make these ineptly run businesses indispensable. Interesting to me is that mining, steel, and textiles have slowly been shuttered in this country. Government did not step in to bail them out. Rather they let the market take its course and today we survive rather well with the changes such inaction has brought. Buildings still get built, heat still gets generated and yes, we still have clothes to wear.
What outgoing President Bush has done is give away the keys to the treasury to an arrogant elite whose sense of entitlement has impoverished us all. GM has believed its future is so entangled with the United States they cannot imagine one without the other.
I can. In fact, when the President gave GM and Chrysler good tax dollars to follow the billions they had squandered, I decided that I would not buy another American labeled automobile. I would assume that Ford will quickly follow which would make it a clean sweep. I am so incensed by such indefensible and irresponsible behavior, I will scratch these folks off my buy list. The fact is there are more brands to pick from now than can survive in a growing world market. As best I can tell, only us and the British have been foolish enough to attempt to prop up failing automotive efforts. Now RR is a BMW brand and Bentley a VW brand, and on and on it could go.
In the history of any technology, innovation and competition kept businesses alive and those who started the race often could not stay in the race. American car makers got lathargic and fat with mediocrity and greed and customer indifference. We kept telling them in surveys their work was shoddy and boring, we kept telling them we were replacing them in our hearts, and in showrooms across America their uninspiring creations stayed. Only arrogant, stupid people don't listen and they didn't.
So, now, in this United States of America where we have huge, huge problems with access to health care, growing unemployment, world wide political instability and rising national debt and deteriorating infastructure do we have the surplus tax money to prop up poorly run industries that will fail before 2009 is out.
Only in America.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tragedy
I was awakened by an early call this morning calling me in to work. An officer's life had gone tragically awry and let behind hundreds of mourners.
Across my years in ministry, suicide has been a black hole that threatened to consume all who it touched. It obviously consumed the person who took that way out of their problems. It invites all that know the person to buy into the despair and hopelessness that fueled the life of the person they loved.
I started my morning off talking to some new officers about dealing with suicide. Suicide is always a hovering issue in prison life. It's easy to understand why. Offenders are given very small cells some of which are shared with another offender. For folks on death row, it will be home until or if they are finally executed. Then, if the offender carries a mental health diagnosis, suicide can be a way out of the weariness of dealing with intractable symptoms that often only go away with heavy, side affect laden medications. No wonder the mentally ill get weary and despairing.
So what did I say--what could I say? First, I am sympathetic, deeply sympathetic to the ones who remain. I remember vividly the day I heard about a fellow pastor who committed suicide. He was pastor of a church in town that had to face the reality their ancient and revered building was structurally unsound. The building had to be razed. As as churches often do, the journey was long, loud, contentious and not without causalities. The first funeral in their new building was the funeral of the pastor who took his life. The invitation to despair was almost overwhelming.
So, I said to the folks that they above everyone else on the planet should know that some folks spend their lives attempting to make others responsible for their lives. That is the story of many offenders. It's someone else's fault. But what we say to them is simply, "Every person is responsible for their own life." That is true for suicide. We cannot take personal responsibility for another's choice to live or die.
I also told them they could not accept the invitation to feel guilty. Suicide is always a race between folks: those who want the person to live and the person who wants to die. If the person wants to die, they will win the race. That is the reality of the situation.
I also told them if they carried away two lessons from this experience it should be: take care of yourself seeking help if you need it when you need it. To refuse help is to choose to self-destruct.
The other thing to remember is that innocent people always suffer when we are unwise in our choices. The final angry outburst toward others is the act of suicide.
Fortunately, there are not many days like today.
Across my years in ministry, suicide has been a black hole that threatened to consume all who it touched. It obviously consumed the person who took that way out of their problems. It invites all that know the person to buy into the despair and hopelessness that fueled the life of the person they loved.
I started my morning off talking to some new officers about dealing with suicide. Suicide is always a hovering issue in prison life. It's easy to understand why. Offenders are given very small cells some of which are shared with another offender. For folks on death row, it will be home until or if they are finally executed. Then, if the offender carries a mental health diagnosis, suicide can be a way out of the weariness of dealing with intractable symptoms that often only go away with heavy, side affect laden medications. No wonder the mentally ill get weary and despairing.
So what did I say--what could I say? First, I am sympathetic, deeply sympathetic to the ones who remain. I remember vividly the day I heard about a fellow pastor who committed suicide. He was pastor of a church in town that had to face the reality their ancient and revered building was structurally unsound. The building had to be razed. As as churches often do, the journey was long, loud, contentious and not without causalities. The first funeral in their new building was the funeral of the pastor who took his life. The invitation to despair was almost overwhelming.
So, I said to the folks that they above everyone else on the planet should know that some folks spend their lives attempting to make others responsible for their lives. That is the story of many offenders. It's someone else's fault. But what we say to them is simply, "Every person is responsible for their own life." That is true for suicide. We cannot take personal responsibility for another's choice to live or die.
I also told them they could not accept the invitation to feel guilty. Suicide is always a race between folks: those who want the person to live and the person who wants to die. If the person wants to die, they will win the race. That is the reality of the situation.
I also told them if they carried away two lessons from this experience it should be: take care of yourself seeking help if you need it when you need it. To refuse help is to choose to self-destruct.
The other thing to remember is that innocent people always suffer when we are unwise in our choices. The final angry outburst toward others is the act of suicide.
Fortunately, there are not many days like today.
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