Angel Trees

Yesterday I decided that I spend too much time online.  Blame it on finals procrastination or the fact that I live alone, but the truth of the matter is that too much of my days are spent mindlessly wandering about the internet.  It is a situation that I want to change, and a situation that affected the course of my entire day.

Perhaps that was a bit of a dramatic statement.  But it is nonetheless true.

You see, my standard morning routine is to get up, eat breakfast, and then turn the computer on.  But today I decided that, instead, I was going to turn the TV on...which, yes, is probably not much of a better choice.  Anyway, somehow I wound up watching the news (an unusual occurrence).  A couple of stories into the program, a reporter popped on the screen standing in front of an Angel Tree (one of those big Christmas trees covered in tags with names and wishlists for underprivileged families that you can pull off and shop for).  The reporter mentioned that, although the deadline for donating gifts is this Monday, there are still some 6,000 families in the DFW area that have yet to be claimed.  That caught my attention, but so did the fact that the reporter was "coming to me live from Northpark Mall," which is the swanky fancy mall about 5 minutes from my apartment.

And so I thought...I ought to go and adopt an angel.

So I texted my friend Miranda and told her my plan, and invited her to join in.  She enthusiastically agreed, and off we went to the mall.  I was shopping for "E. Raymundo," a 3-year old boy who needed a winter outfit and wanted a Spiderman toy.  Miranda picked a tag for a 9-month old, who needed tennis shoes and wanted a musical toy.  Let the shopping begin!

I've shopped for similar programs in the past, and I LOVE when I get to shop for little kids because I never get to shop for that kind of stuff (the woes of being a single and childless 23 year old...but not really, because I'm in grad school and also recognize that I don't actually want my own child at the moment, even if I wouldn't mind borrowing someone else's on occasion).  So we browsed through cute baby clothes and looked at all kinds of adorable toys, and, after four hours of shopping, ended up with the following: a red striped sweatshirt, a white t-shirt, black corduroys, and a stuffed Spiderman doll for my angel, and baby converses, socks, and a stuffed lion that sings and counts for Miranda's angel.  It took us a long time to find everything primarily because we never go in the shops that sell baby things, so we didn't know where we were going and our route was awful...we basically criss-crossed the mall five times throughout the day.  Our feet were absolutely killing us by the end of the day, but it was definitely worth it.

The other thing that I enjoyed about the day is that, like I mentioned earlier, Northpark is a swanky mall - the kind where your purchases come in paper bags with rope handles and tissue paper spewing out the top.  The anchor stores are Nieman-Marcus and Nordstrom, and a lot of the stores are designer boutiques like Oscar de la Renta, Burberry, and Betsy Johnson, besides the Tiffany and Co. that sparkles all shiny-like next to a small coy pond with live ducks.  I very rarely shop here because most of the stores are out of my price range, and I feel guilty buying expensive things for myself...but I feel less guilty buying them for other people.  In fact, it's hard for me to put a cap on spending in these kinds of situations, because I want to just keep putting more and more things in my bag to give to little "E. Raymundo."  And, once I start giving money to charities, I begin to realize just how much money I have compared to a lot of people, and that compels me to give even more.  So it was nice to walk around the mall carrying a bunch of bags, and knowing that almost all of them were going to a good cause.  And it's fun to think that a couple of underprivileged kids are going to have a winter outfit by Ralph Lauren and a stuffed lion from Nieman-Marcus.

As for me and Miranda, we had a great time: the mall was filled with groups of kids singing and playing instruments, and there's just something about helping kids have a good Christmas that puts you in a good mood.  And we didn't leave completely empty handed ourselves...we had lunch at P.F. Changs (where, by the way, you can get an ENORMOUS bowl of DELICIOUS wonton soup for just $8), and rewarded ourselves with a couple of Auntie Anne's pretzels after our shopping journey was complete.  I also went home with this little reindeer, who I saw at a Walgreens in St. Louis and fell in love with, but couldn't find in a Walgreens here in Dallas.  He was hiding in the back of a puzzle shop...it was like destiny for us to meet.

And that is how deciding to spend less time on the internet changed the entire course of my day.  Because of that decision, a couple of kids are going to have presents for Christmas, I got an intense mall-walking workout, ate delicious wonton soup, and found my little reindeer friend :)

Maybe you should spend less time online too...who knows what you might end up doing!

Having

The other day I saw a commercial.  It was either for a car or a phone, I really couldn't tell you which...I think it was a phone, but I can't be sure.

In any case, the script of the commercial went something like this:

"How do you send a text while keeping both hands on the wheel?


How do you find a five-star restaurant while driving?


How can you find the cheapest gas, right when you need it?"


I don't really remember the rest of the commercial, because by this point I was kind of appalled...because, according to this commercial and so many others like it, these are the things that really matter.  Having matters.  But not just having...having NOW.

Are these truly the needs of American society?  Have we become so spoiled that our "needs" are nothing more than wanting a way to use our phone while driving our car?  Is it so vital to our existence that we ensure that the restaurant we've chosen was rated with five stars instead of four?  And if we're eating at those five star restaurants and buying our phones to use in our cars, it's no wonder we're so concerned with finding the cheapest gas...how else are we going to afford the frivolous lifestyle that we somehow believe is not only necessary, but normal?

Last week I often found myself complaining about two different things, using these exact phrases: "I don't have anything to wear!", and "I have GOT to go to the store, I don't have anything to eat!"  I am here to tell you that these were both complete lies.  My closet and dresser are full of t-shirts and jeans and tops and dresses, and my pantry is full of all kinds of dry ingredient items that, while creating an odd sort of meal if juxtaposed on a single plate, would keep me well fed for quite some time.  I may say that I have nothing to wear, but I never have to walk around naked.  I may say that I have nothing to eat, but I never go hungry.

But notice the phrasing that I used in my complaints, because it's the phrasing that I think has become so ingrained in our American psyches that we don't even notice it's there anymore:

"I don't have anything to wear."  Not, "I don't have anything I CARE to wear."

"I don't have anything to eat."  Not, "I don't have anything I CARE to eat."

It's the latter statements that were really true for me last week...yet somehow the distinction has gotten clouded.  And I don't think it's just gotten clouded for me...I think it's gotten clouded for all of us.

"I just can't wait until I've stopped driving to send this text message."


"Hold on, my phone can find us a five-star restaurant for dinner."


"Gas is two cents cheaper three miles away, let's go fill up there instead."

What about the people of the world whose thoughts run differently?

"I have to drive into the next village to use the phone."


"I wonder if I'm going to have food for dinner tonight?"


"I wonder if my wages will last me through the week?"

These thoughts may have come to me more strongly during the commercial because my father is currently leading a mission trip in Ghana, where real, concrete, actual needs are being met in real, concrete, actual ways through the work of the team and those financially supporting their work.  But that doesn't mean that the need isn't great here in America as well - I help at a food pantry that packs weekly food boxes for families that contain less food than my pantry does when I "need" to go to the store.

On my way back from work, I pass two enormous billboards for the iPad 2 - those New York-style advertisements that drape the sides of skyscrapers.  To be honest, I like driving past these kinds of advertisements because, despite their blatant consumerism, they make me feel all young and hip and city-chic.  But, at the same time, I know that in the shadows of those billboards are countless homeless people and families living in poverty.  I work in a neighborhood where half of the residents have less than a high school education, maintain blue-collar jobs, and where 80% of the family households living in poverty contain children.  Those cosmopolitan iPad 2 billboards are less than 10 minutes away from this neighborhood.

So what are our needs?  Everyone has needs, to be sure...but how much of the things that we think we "need" are truly necessities in our lives?  And if we consider these things as necessities, are they necessities because we truly need them to survive, or because someone told us that they were a necessity?  Or, is it because we have convinced ourselves that our wants are truly needs?

My seminary does a project a couple times a year where students makes "Manna Bags" to keep in their cars and hand out to homeless people begging at intersections.  The bags have things like crackers, a water bottle, personal hygiene products, a list of shelters in the city...the basics.  To be honest, I have always found this activity to be outside my comfort zone, but recently I was sitting in the backseat of a friend's car when we encountered a homeless man begging.  As my friend opened the window and called out "Excuse me sir, would you like a bag?,"  I was touched by the man's response:  "Aww man, I need the socks real bad.  Thank you."  My friend asked him, "What's your name?"  "Steven."  "Have a good day, Steven."  And then we drove away.

"I need the socks real bad."


Real needs reveal our supposed "necessities" for what they really are: privileges.  Blessings that we have turned into "rights."

So maybe we don't need to concern ourselves with having the latest technological gadget.  Maybe we don't need to eat at fancy restaurants.  Maybe we shouldn't whine about gas prices so much when we can still afford to fill our tanks and our mouths without having to choose between the two.

Maybe instead of focusing on Having, we should focus on Giving.