Where is the Love?

By Christine Rose © 2009

Hello Fellow Suburbanites!!

It looks like this blog has opened a small office in the corner of my brain, and I am actually storing things there for future ref these days. Speaking of storing things, I run a small charity called Changing Winds Inc (www.changingwinds.org) and rather then collect tons of money, we collect tons of stuff and send it out to Indian Reservations in South Dakota which are, by the way, the poorest counties in the country.

Lots of people help, and living in a wealthy suburb allows us to collect massive amounts of clothing and furniture in really good shape. The idea is that there is so much stuff that exists in this country, but the weight of is balanced precariously on both edges of the country. If we don't spread it out, who knows, the weight of it all might snap off both the east and west coasts! So we are not only moving all the existing stuff to people who need it, we are possibly keeping the wealthier coasts intact by shipping much of our excess to the center of the country, the Heart Lands. Did you know that if you flew over the Black Hills in South Dakota, you would see that the entire region, which is the center of the country, actually is shaped like a heart? Well, now you know. :-)

Today, I spent the better part of my morning rearranging stuff that had been so generously dropped off by supporters (notably Betsy K Home Choreographers) over at Westy's Storage facilities, which donates garage size rooms to us, enabling to collect tons of stuff before we ship it out. (I apologize for the shameless plugs for our supporters, but hey, they deserve it!)

In plowing through the things that had been dropped off, I came across a book that someone had left. Now, you tell me if you think this was a good thing to drop off for the poorest people in the country. Do you think they really needed a book, featuring a nice middle class blonde housewife on the cover, called, Learning to Live With Less? Ouch! Somehow, it seems the people we are shipping stuff to could write their own version, don't you think? If you ask me, they could probably really teach us a thing or two about living with less. My guess is they have mastered it.

But hey, its hard for me to feel less then gracious when I look at all the incredible things that people did leave. Including their trash. Ooops. Did I say that? Sadly, yes. I did. Because it happens.

Have you ever really thought about the word Charity? What images come to mind when you consider the word? Sally Struthers and the Starving Children of Africa? (No, it is not a new band.) Anyway, no joke, those starving kids are probably the kind of images that all of us imagine. So here's a question, Why would we send them things that should thrown out?

For several years, we refused to take used goods, preferring to purchase new items with financial donations instead. However, so many people looked shocked and perplexed when we refused to accept used goods that I started to think, well, maybe in light of the economic crisis, and certainly environmentally, it might be a good idea to give it a try.

Our reputation on the reservations has always been good, and one woman who works at ICWA (which is the Indian Child Welfare Act agency) told us that they actually felt the love that was packed in all the boxes we send out. Gee, that was nice to hear. She also said, “You know, Christine, for years people have been sending us their junk. It felt like that was all they thought of us, that we were just worth the junk they sent to us.”

This year, in light of the economy and ecology, we thought, well, maybe there is a middle ground, and we can send out really good used stuff. We put out a call for items that are LIKE NEW with NO SIGNS OF WEAR. And wow! You should have seen the results! One man sent us a coat in which every pocket was ripped, and it smelled of cigarettes and was covered with greasy stains. It looked like someone had worn that coat every day for maybe ten years. To be nice, I thought, Well, maybe he really really loved that coat, and this was his way of sending the love. Maybe he didn't even see how worn out it was.

Then bags of shoes arrived; smelly shoes, with the heels worn down. Then stained baby clothes. Today I threw out a strange wicker shelving unit that was for some indecipherable use, and was shredded, with all the wicker sticks detached from the bottom. Old board games missing pieces. Chairs that had sticky stains on them. Broken electronics. A basket of computer wires....that went to nothing. One woman dropped off a beat up bed I would have expected to see for free on the side of the road, and she asked me for a tax deduction of $500.00.

So I am sitting here wondering just what it is when people think of charity. I know how it made me feel when I opened those boxes of dirty things. It made me feel gross, and dirty, and almost violated. Is that what charity means? I never realized what an amazing service Goodwill provides in that it gives us all a place to drop off the junk that may have a good degree of love attached to it, so much that we can't bear to throw it out. But when it comes to putting garbage directly into the hands of a person who is already suffering so many burdens, I have to ask, where is the love?

The Old Woman and the Sea

By Christine Rose © 2009

People often ask me why life is so hard. Difficulties vary from one person to the next, according to our own decisions and actions but also according to the challenges we face in sharing our lives with other people. How profound to recognize that there is purpose to each and every hardship and relationship we encounter!

Its not really about the hardship, but how we deal with it that is the most telling about our spiritual development.

A friend called me the other day and told me that a friend of hers had four tickets to the Emmies in LA, and they would have the opportunity to visit Ellen Degeneres while they were there. My friend told me, “Sure, I would like to go, but I have four kids I need to get to school.” 


 We talked about how good she could feel about putting her responsibilities before her own selfish desires. But then the pot sweetened!  Suddenly, the offer was one of a new outfit to wear to the Emmies, passes to the Emmy parties, visits with other celebrities. Suddenly, my friend was dying to shirk those responsibilities and take off on this expense paid celebrity bash weekend! Even worse, another lady who was going called my friend relentlessly to share each new addition to the star studded trip.

To her credit, she still refused to go; but she was green with envy of those who had been able to arrange their lives so they could go and she wanted to rip out the throat of the gloater. When she came to me, it was with the highest spiritual intention that one could hope for. She asked me what to do with her envy, how could she overcome it? She told me that she thought she had overcome this particular type of jealousy, and she was forlorn to find it still lurking within her. She also wanted to know how one could spiritually deal with someone so cruel as to rub her face in the fact that she was not going.

I have been married twice, neither of which has worked out for me. Thats okay, its clear I had too much to do, and relationships, other then with my children, have just not been enough of a priority for me to make a successful life with others. What I DO have are two ex-husbands who continued to challenge me in many ways, and I am actually grateful for that.

One of my favorite lines came from a man I know. He asked me, “Why would my wife leave me? I'm perfect!” I laughed for a month or so, but gave it some thought. There really is something to that. If it weren't for having to deal with others, most of us would be pretty perfect. Its the nuances of personal relationships that act as a mirror, our actions towards others reflecting who we are, helping us see ourselves more clearly. When we can do that, when we do not get mad at others but check our own reactions, that's when we are making real spiritual progress.

I had tea with another friend of mine at sunrise this morning. Yawn. Don't ask, we were just up because of our kids. Her life has been a constant struggle with an overbearing, cruel mother, a husband who has been in and out of rehab, and two kids under four, AND a fifteen year old teenager. She faces challenges in every single one of her relationships. Clearly, she is heavy in the midst of a life of refinement.

But why? This friend asked me, “Why is it all so hard?” I explained something to her that the sea told me this weekend, and it is a beautiful story that I am happy to share.

My ex-husband, lets call him Jerry for future reference, came at me with both barrels last week. He was angry at my daughter's involvement with a church that does not meet his approval. Apparently, his idea of religion is going church on Sunday to visit God, but whatever you do, don't invite God back to your house for any extended visits! My daughter is participating in a church that has an extremely active youth group. They meet, voluntarily, for Scripture Study at 6 a.m., which Jerry thought was extreme. I was not too keen on it either; lets face it, getting up at 5:30 a.m., sheesh! Even the birds are still asleep. Heck, I am waking them up, for a change! But I have to give my daughter credit. If she was willing to get up at the literal crack of dawn and join 20 other teens for Scripture Study, more power to her. Why would I stand in her way?! There are far worse things she could be doing.

Well, Jerry just thinks its all a little too much God. In fact, he was incredibly cruel and hurt my feelings deeply.

I went to the beach, which is where I go to pray, and I walked out onto the furthest jetty. I sat down, and asked God, Why would he have been so mean? He knows I will not fight back, that I am a person of mush who often feels like Taylor must have felt when Kanye stole her moment.

I sat there a while when God said, Look! I looked at the water and realized that the tide was receding. The jetty was probably ¼ mile out into the sea, and only about six feet above the water, and though the shore was so far away, I could still see the movement, the tidal pull, as the water rushed backwards towards the horizon. At the same time, the waves continued to surge towards the shore. I became intensely aware of the struggle the water faced within itself. Part of it pulled one way, while it instinctively rushed yet another. This is how God talks to me. God says, Look.

I recognized that we are, as Jesus said (but what was removed from the Bible) Two, instead of One. Our bodies are part of the earth, they are made of the earth, and like animals, they do what they must to survive. The feelings of the physical are usually our base feelings, the self-indulgent, ego based feelings, for instance, The heart wants what it wants. Our spiritual selves, though, are the stuff that God makes, the eternal part of us that goes on long after the body disintegrates into dust. That part is real, folks, and it is the reason we are here.

As we mature, we become dissatisfied with our lower selves and usually seek to begin some sort of self-improvement, especially if we choose to follow a spiritual path. That doesn't mean it will be easy. It means that we will be fighting the current of our physical wants and desires over our higher natures. My star struck friend beautifully addressed the situation when she said, “I don't want to change the gloater, I want to get rid of this jealousy.” BRAVO! I wish that I could always react as perfectly as that.

The other friend, the one with all of the burdensome relationships, said to me, “I want to understand how to become a Child of God. I want to understand what that means.”

Both of them took the right step in not blaming their circumstances, but by taking personal responsibility for their emotions and actions. And the answer for both was very simple, and exactly the same. There is really only one way to ask for answers about our self-improvement, and about how to gain a real relationship with God. And it ain't through me.