You know how I relieve awkward situations? I state the obvious and draw attention to it. It actually relieves the tension. There's no point in living with an elephant in the room. You can't confront a problem if you don't face it. Conflict avoidance is a terrible way to work things out. It's too bad that most of the time my initial desire is to ignore the tension and pretend it doesn't exist.
That was just on my mind, now for the real post... the cliche Christmas post that everyone is posting around these times.
Christmas was good. I made it home before noon on Christmas Eve, finished my Christmas shopping, and went to the Christmas party at my cousins house. Then Christmas day my family got up, had breakfast, and opened gifts. Every year I find myself unhappy at that point. My family gets me great gifts, like this year, I got a GPS thing, two new tires for my car, pajamas, and a few other small things. See, really good gifts. But like so many others before me, I sit here and think about what the point of it is.
My parents feels bad when they can't shower us with 15 gifts on Christmas (so they feel bad every Christmas). I find each year that i don't really want anything else. Most of the time I feel like I have everything I am ever going to need.
What I really wanted on Christmas was to see the people I haven't seen in the past five months. I know that they were all busy celebrating with their families, so they couldn't see me... and that's when I started thinking about all this.
Christmas isn't about gifts and parties or even people really. It's a celebration of the incarnation of our Lord and King, Jesus Christ. Of His birth... In that we celebrate with family and friends, and serve people around us... or we claim that we do it in the Spirit of His name. Do we really though? We includes me.
I know that I have made a few posts that question and rag on Church and Spiritual matters, but please don't think I am angry or even dis-illusioned with the Church. I have frustration that I experience because of what I see, but I love the Church.
On another note...
A few days ago, my new tour partner, Katey, and I were in South Dakota at a Dairy Queen when we met this older man who gave us Christmas cards. He wanted someone to talk to, so we talked with him for a little while, and learned about him. I never found out his name, but his birthday was around Dec. 15 and he spent it alone. He also spent Thanksgiving alone, and he might have spent Christmas alone. I don't know if he did. I hope not. He told us that he would spend Christmas alone if his brother and sister in law couldn't come get him.
I felt really bad for him because its awful to feel lonely, to feel like you don't matter to anyone. What was really sad to me is that this man was not sitting and sulking about his problems and saying "woe is me", nor was he asking for money or food or donations. He was out there at Dairy Queen making an effort, trying to talk to people and handing out Christmas cards. People simply weren't responding to him. Maybe it was because he was Native American, or perhaps because he was visibly blind in one eye. He might have looked scary to people. But my heart cried for him because he was lonely. I ended up giving him a postcard with my address on it so he could write to me if he wanted. I hope he does. I can't wait to write back to him.
I started thinking about ministry and how a lot of ministry is focused around the poor, needy, hungry... and providing for their physical needs. Give them food, give them lodging, give them money, give them clothes, get them a job, teach them to fish... how many of these people only wanted to feel that they were loved and cared for and not just a charity case for some Christian who hasn't given their tithe yet? How many of them are lonely and want sometone to sit with them for a while?
Sometimes it's so much easier to just give people things and not try to connect with them on a personal level, but human kind as a whole is deeply and instinctually relational. We need interaction and we need to know that we are more than a number, statistic, or charity case. My prayer goes out to this man, and to all the lonely people. May you find that you are love.
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