TeachingCompassion
Good morning Sunday Morning Coffee-ites! If you celebrate Christmas, then happy Christmas eve to you, happy Hanukkah, and if you lit a Yule log for the winter solstice, I wish you much light for the coming year. We still have Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the Feast of St Stephen to come. December is a busy month of celebrating.
Most religious celebrations remind us to be mindful of those who have less than we have. It’s good to be reminded. In the busy-ness of our preparations for family get-togethers, and in fact in our every day lives, we can easily forget that the abundance we live with is indeed a blessing. Some are not so blessed, and some of us may have lived through a period of non-abundance ourselves. It can be easy to forget how that feels.
I took my daughter and one granddaughter with me to DC to help my nonprofit partner, Paul Taylor, give out toys last Sunday in SW. We helped stage the toys, give out long underwear and socks to parents, then help the young ‘uns navigate the massive choices they had in picking out a couple of toys. It was worth the whole day to see their faces.
We prepped our 6 year old before we got there: No begging for a toy, some children aren’t as fortunate as we are, no begging for a toy, we’re there to serve, no begging for a toy. We made it through just fine. There was no begging for a toy, but she did take advantage of the fact that she was the only kid in the room with Santa before we opened the doors, so she got in a last-minute order with the big guy.
It was a fun day. Jane started off working, but with that many kids in the building, you know that her ‘work’ ended up playing with every kid who was game (and every kid 10 and under was game). She left talking about her new best friends.
And yes, she got a toy. One of the other volunteers randomly popped up and handed her a remote control car that she kept lingering over on one of the tables. Her face was priceless. There’s nothing like a surprise gift when you think you absolutely won’t get one, is there?
After our fellow-worker handed the toy to Jane and told her what a great worker she’d been, she passed by me and nonchalantly, quietly, said, “Don’t take that toy away from that baby, hear me?” lol! She no doubt heard the “no begging for a toy” warning repeatedly while we set up.
The breadth of human kindness astounds me. Asking for toy donations, setting them up in a church basement, and letting kids pick one seems sorta easy-like, doesn’t it? It was magical for us, and for the kids, but I watched Paul navigate some parents who were not behaving well, and I was reminded that sometimes people make kindness hard to give. In addition to the toys, he hired a caterer and served anyone who came in the door, no matter their age. He and his army of volunteers dealt with all unpleasantness firmly, but with kindness. Kids were watching, after all.
And that’s the point of my words today. Our kids are watching us. Even kids who aren’t technically “ours.” I believe we have a certain amount of innate compassion baked in at birth, but this world, and the people in it, can snuff that out before a child is old enough to remember they had it. Most of what we know about compassion is taught to us, either explicitly or through observation. When we took our 6 year old to a toy drive, we prepped by explaining that when parents make just enough money to feed their children, toys are a luxury. This is a harder conversation than you might think when the Christmas tree in your living room is dwarfed by the pile of presents under it (my grandchildren have still have great-great grandparents on their dad’s side of the family, so the presents just keep pouring in, and, ok, we’re guilty of going overboard too).
When a kid grows up never wanting for anything, how can they possibly imagine having nothing, unless you teach them?
Now, all Jane got last Sunday was a bunch of lecturing, because her 6-year-old self couldn’t discern that the kids she played with all day may not have been as fortunate as her. She just saw a bunch of new best friends who got lucky enough to take home TWO new toys from that magical room, and she got lucky enough to play with them, and I have to admit I like that. She looked at them and just saw…herself.
Isn’t that how we should all be looking at each other?
Whatever you’re celebrating this week, I hope your days are filled with light, love, and peace. If it’s a non-celebratory week for you, I wish you the same.
Cheers to you!
