Holiday from the heart

Heartfelt giving -

I find it heartbreaking that so many people feel such a need to marginalize and demonize others in an effort to establish themselves as compassionate, caring, righteous, moral and above all, superior.

I was verbally affronted the other day when dropping some clothes off at the Goodwill. As I placed my bags into the bin, a lady pulled up and hopped out of her car and began placing paper bags of items by the side of the container on the ground. “I can’t reach all the way up there to throw these in, they wash all these things before selling them anyway” she stated matter-of-factly.

“I can put them in for you” I said.  “You can if you want to but it doesn’t really matter, they have to sort through all this junk we leave and clean whatever they want to keep of it anyway. Besides those kind of people who buy it don’t expect this stuff to be perfect, just cheap!” she replied. “The Goodwill expects people to donate items that are in good shape and clean, not junk” I said with a bit of a glare at her. “Whatever, you are crazy if you spend your time washing stuff before you bring it here. I do my part for charity; I even gave some to their Bell Ringers ”.  “The Bell Ringers are the Salvation Army” came my response and then her immediate “Whatever!”Those were her parting words as she climbed into her car and sped off. 

Now I’m not so perfect and I can be as judgmental as anyone, in fact my first “judgment” was that she probably never actually even entered a Goodwill or Salvation Army, let alone considered ever buying and using something from them. Then I judged her as a prissy well to do Bitch. But I didn’t judge her that way to make myself feel better about “me”, or to belittle or demean “her kind”. My judgment was of her at that moment, of her action and of her words with me, so it was really my conclusion of her character in that brief exchange.

Regardless of whether it was my conclusion, or a judgment, or a label, or a group that I had just associated her to, I was later just as troubled with my own anger at her and that compulsion to connect her personal action and words to anything greater, to some group or class.

Finally it came to me. And it’s important this time of year as Holidays approach and with the recent weather  disaster – Charity, Benevolence, Donations, Giving , if not truly done from the heart in an action to share and care for others in good will in order to help them as equals, actually subjugates them or elevates you.

We are for the most part a compassionate and caring society, for the most part we embrace justice and equity, fairness and equal opportunity, the freedom to become better off and prosper. We want to help people with a “hand up”. But that has to be heart-felt. It has to start truly from there, from your heart, you have to feel it and believe in that. Otherwise it’s more an action of duty or a kind gesture but without real compassion. In those cases your spirit of “giving” is not present, there is no empathy. It is just another action or task or “to do” on your list; went to the bank-check, washed the car-check, dropped stuff at the Goodwill-check, eat lunch-check.

We all have our causes and favorite charities, we donate a great deal of time, money and effort into these and sometimes we really do feel a sense of caring and sharing. I have to remind myself of this often, I’m human in a very fast paced “me” world, and holidays bring out the best and worst in all of us.

Care, share and give from your heart and I believe you will “feel” a special gift within yours.

May the Spirit of giving be with you now and through-out the year, Good Will to you and yours this holiday season. Enjoy your Holiday celebration and respect others in theirs.

Peace and cheers to everyone!