Disposable society

We live in what most people will acknowledge is a disposable society these days. We think nothing of throwing anything away, no matter what it is. A two year old computer is now obsolete, so out it goes to the landfill. Batteries don't work? Into the trash. All of our televisions will soon be unable to cope with HDTV signals coming in without help, and I am certain we will see an onslaught of them trucked into landfills across the country.

At this rate, we will soon have added another layer to the earth's crust. Geologists will call it Plasticus Fillitup, and future generations will no doubt marvel at how a layer of plastic could have formed just under the surface of the earth. It will probably be a whole new discipline of study.

Our culture has engaged in this disposable embrace for some time, of course. Ask about having any electronic item you own repaired, and you will find out pretty quickly just how little opportunity there is to reuse nowadays. Even pets are considered just a temporary commitment by too many people - here today, inconvenient tomorrow, so out they go to fend for themselves, or off to a shelter and good luck and goodbye.

We have now seen extremes of this throwaway attitude with the recent dropping off of teenagers in Nebraska, where parents at wit's end came from all over the country to dump their children on the state to deal with, because they simply don't know what else to do, as if the kid is an unwanted pet or an old refrigerator. What does that say about us as a society, if we place so little value on anything, that everything is on the throwaway list, including our children?

You are no doubt wondering what got me started on this jag. Well, it is the annual ritual of putting up the Christmas lighting display outdoors, which sets me off every year. This year was no different. What IS it with twinkle light manufacturers that makes them think you should be willing to buy 15 sets of new lights every single year? Because that is the quality with which they appear to be made.

It is infuriating to spend money every single year replacing light strings that you bought just 12 short months ago, and which do not make it through even one season, it seems, without half or more of the strand simply dying on the vine, literally. I realize they have a fiduciary duty to their stockholders to make money, but isn't there at least some responsibility to their customers, too, to produce a product that lives longer than an average house fly?

I was armed for battle this year, ready to revolt the poor quality lighting situation by boycotting the entire exercise, when I was stopped in my tracks by a daughter bent on having cheerful lights to greet her at the door when she arrives home from work. There is only so much pressure a person can take, and that just wasn't worth it.

So off I went to the nether regions of my house to find the recalcitrant lights, and see what could be done. Which was, in brief, not much. Shortly thereafter, my annual pilgrimage to Walmart commenced, following the star, or at least the twinkle lights, to once again festivize the exterior of my home for other people to enjoy.

Thus it was that AS I was putting up yet another new string of lights, pulled from the packaging moments beforehand, the blues and greens went out on me. I was not a happy consumer, standing out there in the cold, throwing the string around like a lariat come to life, trying to show that recalcitrant strand who was boss. I eventually got them going again, [for now, anyway,] but I have no illusions about their longevity, after the initial outage incident.

There is a larger issue here for me. I believe that we are stewards of the earth, and that God has left us to our own devices with rather strict instructions that we were to have dominion over the whole of the globe. [Although I notice there is no mention of dominating the universe, something which gives me pause.] With dominion comes responsibility, and I think we have fallen down on the job rather spectacularly.

I recently viewed a program about archaeologists excitedly excavating an ancient site. My own personal reservations about disrupting the eternal resting places of the dearly departed aside, it is pretty interesting stuff, because you can find out a lot about people from excavating their living spaces a few centuries into the future. Not surprisingly, the thing they were most excited about was the finding of the ancient equivalent of a landfill, because it held a mine of information about the culture that threw those objects away.

I wonder what a 31 century archaeologist would think about our culture, based on what is in our landfills. They will give a wealth of information, I have no doubt, because they are full of the plastic and metal articles that will be the gifts that keep on giving for hundreds or even thousands of years. But what will that information say about us as people? As stewards of the earth? Or even of our own civilization?

I shudder to imagine their reaction on finding what we have casually thrown away, still there a thousand years from now. I wonder how many CD's there will be, how many CRT monitors, stoves, refrigerators, televisions.... The list is long, and growing daily.

And while we think that we have fully documented our lives and our civilization, and everything will always be known about us and our culture, it is illusion. The reality is that it can all be wiped out in one catastrophic incident, and the archaeologists of the future may know only what they find. I don't know about you, but I don't think some broken appliances and millions of strings of twinkle lights are going to say much that is worth knowing about us.

The whole throwaway attitude rather ironically reminds me of my mom, who, having been raised as a depression child, has the motto, "Never throw anything away. You just never know when you will need it." She saves everything, and her house is a treasure trove of stuff that you might need some day. My mother was a green thinker long before it was the trendy thing to do. She has reused, and reworked, and redone things as a way of life, her entire life, and she knows how to make things last.

She has fixed things that other people wouldn't even think about saving, like her bread maker, which has gone on years longer than it's expected, or projected, life span. She doesn't believe in buying something new when you can make do with the old. She puts function ahead of form on a regular basis. [Except for me. I am totally form, completely dysfunctional most of the time, and she puts up with me anyway.]

I am genuinely wondering if the current recession will change the long held habits of the buying public, which has never seen a sale it can't exploit. The roots of this recession run deep through the fabric of our society, I believe, and go to the heart of how American companies have done business over the last 25 years or so.

The short term benefits have consistently trumped the long term viability of almost every company in business today. That is a way of thinking that consumers seem to have embraced with enthusiasm, since there is no demand for products that last, but rather, a rush to the stores to buy new with such zeal that we will literally trample the person in front of us to get the latest gadget or trinket. Even if it costs someone else their life for us to do so.

This is a method of doing business that cannot, in the long haul, be sustained. Companies today are bought and sold on the basis of what you did for me today, rather than what the long term prospects may be. Even profitable is not good enough any more for the rampant investment from overseas, and American companies are consistently dismantled for under-performing, even as they post positive profits.

So, in getting back to the tale of the twinkle lights that set off this little rant, I had two strings of lights on which I simply refused to give up, mom-style. [She probably has strings of lights she is using that are older than I am, and if she can persevere, so can I. She is my role model, after all. I would say she is my idol, but she is a Minnesota Lutheran, and wouldn't be comfortable with that kind of fuss.] Both strings were new last year, and are the expensive kind with the controls that will allow you to have them do a variety different lighting schemes. In my view, there is no excuse for strings of lights that won't work for two consecutive years, and I was going to make them work, whatever it took. Thus, I spent all day Sunday pulling the little lights out, replacing, testing, until in the end, partial success.

One string of those lights is currently on my bushes outside, twinkling merrily on high, at least for today. The other string has been relocated to an undisclosed location, the details of which are a deeply guarded secret. We won't talk about those right now. Suffice it to say, they have not seen the last of me. I have my moral victory, and justice will be served.

I'm out of my tree

I had this Thanksgiving weekend fully planned out, strategically designed to maximize the time to get everything done that needed to be completed before my Wildcat son returned to the land of purple gloom.

Unfortunately, my highly coordinated plans derailed early in the week, and have never gotten back on track since. The weekend is nearly over, the Thanksgiving holiday is almost gone, and I have yet to do anything that I most wanted to accomplish, other than baking a turkey, which wasn't without a hitch in and of itself.

I did get out to the stores, where the holiday season is now underway in full force. Retailers are pulling out all the stops, in a crescendo of buying enticements designed to pull in even the most reluctant of spenders. Each year I feel increasingly disconnected from the buying frenzy - with no small children, there is no hot toy to be had, no item without which Christmas will be less magical.

Instead, I can now take time and be more thoughtful, giving gifts that are unique and designed to be appealing to the gifted for their sentimental value, more than any monetary value that they might have attached to them. Some of the happiest gifts I've ever been given would not require an insurance rider for their value, but they are irreplaceable for me, and priceless.

The one thing I most wanted to do with both of my kids present seems slightly out of reach at this moment. Without the centerpiece of the celebration, the rest of it doesn't really seem to inspire the holiday spirit in me, even if I did finally get the cards in the mail, and the decorating spirit is now moving within.

Yesterday, when I got up, it was with the full intention of getting our Christmas tree, that sublimely scented symbol of Christian renewal that fills home and nostrils with the eminence of the holiday. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not on the same page.

First it was raining, then it was snowing, then it was raining again. If you do not know my family, we are not the hardy pioneer stock that settled this prairie land so many years ago. At the first sign of precipitation, I would hear a chorus of complaints about the cold, not wanting to get shoes wet, and the urgency of doing something, anything, other than experiencing the great outdoors in all it's wet glory.

Naturally, knowing this about my family, I immediately revised my original plan, putting off the tree expedition for today, before Adam leaves. I used my time wisely, getting out my Christmas cards which I traditionally mail on Thanksgiving Day, but which had crept up and surprised me undone this year. I thought surely it would be a more fortuitous day for the celebration of green today, since it rarely snows this early, and when it does, it generally melts immediately.

When I got up this morning, however, it was not to sunshine and dry ground. On the contrary, there is actual SNOW out there, and it seems to be making a home on my lawn. Which does not bode well for the procurement process, I must say. I rather fear that this annual Thanksgiving weekend event is going to be waylaid by the weather. I fear we will not find ourselves in possession of our Tannenbaum at the end of the day, and all that glitters in our household will not be ornaments and twinkle lights on a tree.

I am eager to hustle out and get this tree, so I will have the opportunity to get full enjoyment of it, and will be able to see it and experience it as long as possible. Thus, this morning, my disappointment, as I realize that the tree will probably have to wait for another day.

My tree means a lot to me, more now than it used to, in fact. It is disappointing to me to have to put off this annual exercise in family unity, as we come to negotiated agreement on which evergreen will best represent the holiday spirit for each one of us. It is the usual culminating experience of Thanksgiving for me, and it is a moment that I treasure each year, at least in part because it is something the three of us have always had fun doing together.

One of the best things about being divorced, I've found, is the ability to make any decision I want without regard to another person's wishes. [Well, except for my children, who pretty much dictate everything all the time.] When I was married, we had a "pretty" tree, with lovely crystal, glass, and porcelain ornaments for the main floor living room. It was a formal tree, to match the formal room in which it was situated, a room that was rarely used, uncomfortable, a pass through place with little value to me.

When I got divorced, one of the things I needed to do was to eliminate that formal room, and replace it with one that was welcoming and pleasant, one in which people who entered our front door would wish to sit and visit awhile. I sold off the furniture, which was very serviceable still, since it was rarely used, and bought some contemporary items that are fun and comfortable.

Another thing I did, to go along with that new casual comfort, was to move the family tree, the one with all the fun kid's ornaments that we have collected over the years, upstairs to the space where we spend all our time. It is, in some ways, a metaphor for my divorced life, that the family tree which was once relegated to the unseen level, where it was rarely enjoyed, is now front and center, and in full view of everyone who comes to the door.

I still have my fancy tree, of course. I think this year it will be in the family room downstairs, which is enjoyed by teens on a fairly regular basis, and they may enjoy having that space decorated for them, too.

But the one I most look forward to is the one that will occupy center stage, the focal point of our holiday decorations. I look forward to unpacking the clothespin Rudolph that my son made for me when he was little. I love the Gingerbread Man with the missing Red Hot buttons that my daughter made for me when she was in preschool.

When my son was born, I began a tradition of giving him an ornament every year, thinking that by the time he was grown and had a tree of his own, he would have a lovely starter set of ornaments that would be meaningful and important to him. He is now 23, and his ornaments fill that tree with warm memories of happy occasions, and my daughter's ornaments do the same. I have a few that I have been given as well, not the beautiful crystal and glass decorations of the formal tree, but warm and happy informal decorations, like the informality that rules in my post-married life.

I will have my tree sooner or later, and it will be beautiful as always. I will decorate it with twinkling lights and our precious ornaments of years already gone, and the memories that we each hold as the ornaments move from box to tree will warm our hearts and brighten our spirits.

Each time I look at the tree, I will be reminded that although my life has changed over the years, and things look very different now, change isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes, a transformation is what you need to make your life full and complete.

Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree, your branches green delight us. I can't wait to bring you home, and enjoy the glory that is the Christmas season once again!

Santa Claus is coming to town

When I was a little girl, Christmas was the most magical time of the year. Anything was possible, every dream could come true. My nights were filled with visions of new dolls and new toy ovens and new gadgets and gewgaws that would somehow transform my dreary little life into something spectacular.

I was startled recently by seeing a commercial that brought me right back to my childhood. It showed several children "playing" plastic instruments, looking like they were having the time of their lives. Britney Spears on stage doesn't have any more fun than this cabal of little tykes playing their plastic for all they were worth. I saw those toys through adult eyes, and the cynic in me snickered as I contemplated what those toys probably really look like, to say nothing of how they probably sound. But I know for the children that may have been watching, those little pieces of colorful plastic represented unlimited dreams, opportunity, the future.

It is good to have dreams. Without them, children would have no goals to shoot for, no reason to advance, to learn, to grow up. They would never move out, and their parents would be stuck with them forever. Since I have two of those people in residence myself, no one is more motivated than I am to incentivize them to pursue the possibilities that present themselves.

But I have to wonder just how much of an incentive it is when we present our kids with toys that do everything for them? If they already play the music, why learn to play the piano? If they already spin, or toss, or fill in their own blanks, why bother to learn and grow and change and pursue a dream?

When I was a little girl, toys were rudimentary, at best, by comparison with today's technological wonders. It was a Big Deal when Baby First Step came out, and she could walk all by herself [batteries not included.] Dolls would wet themselves, because they had a hole in their mouth that the water went in, and a hole slightly lower where the water came out. It was a learning process, [although I will be honest, it did not prepare me for the real thing. Real babies are so wet and so loud. Who knew?]

I think it is possible to do too much for your children - to give them too much, to allow them too little room to expand their own minds. Our children are so regimented, so busy, so structured, that I often wonder when they have time to think, to dream things up, to invent, to just simply Be.

I grew up on a farm in the middle of rural Minnesota. We were poor, I will admit, and my mother was a born money manager. She is capable of great things, where a little money is concerned, and she can make a little go a very, very long ways. Of course, she didn't have much choice, so that was a helpful imperative, I'm sure. I knew that I didn't have as much as some of the kids around me, but I was never deprived, and in many ways, I had a wealth that cannot be bought.

I had the luxury of time. I played every day, and our play, when I had neighbors around to play with, or my play, when I didn't, was creative and full of imagination. I had to invent most of what I did, because there weren't any interactive games to tell me what to do, and I wasn't hampered by plastic toys that could only be used for one thing. We made do with our imaginations, and thus, I didn't realize that I was doing without. I had the entire world at my fingertips at any moment, and whatever I didn't have, I dreamed up.

Among my favorite games was FBI, where I was the intrepid agent tracking down the bad guys and hauling them off to jail in my playhouse. We had a couple of old cars sitting around that we would sit in and pretend to drive, and we watched our imaginary quarry from our hidden vantage point with every bit as much attentiveness as any real agent ever has.

The most interesting part, in looking back, is that even when there were several of us, we all seemed to imagine the same elements in our games, even though none of it was real. Do children today ever have that opportunity to have a meeting of the minds, a childish detente with an imaginary foe, that always ended with the good guys [that would be us] winning the day?

When I had to clean my room, I would play retail store, to try to make the task less odious. I have never been too big on cleaning, it's not the fun part of life for me. So to make it a little more interesting, I would make up games while cleaning my room, something my mother forced upon me only rarely, but always in great exasperation when it happened. Thus, when she was pushed to the limit, I would be under pressure to make the room somewhat less of a hazardous waste zone, leading to the amusing activity of retail clerk. [A game my own daughter now plays for real, and she will be happy to share with you that it is not as much fun as you might think.]

I would pick up piles of clothes, with no clue if they were clean or dirty, of course, and would then start to sort them. I would pretend that I was working in a retail store, which at the time seemed like a dream job - sort of like getting paid to shop, right? [Erin is now snickering at me, just at the thought of it.]

I would fold and hang and sort, all the while pretending that I was working instead of being punished for my sloth-like behavior. Eventually, I would forget the point, and would start to get interested in the clothes themselves, and would try them on and start to model them and dream up other outfits that would go together in a new and stylish look, rarely, if ever, actually making headway without some intervention on the part of my increasingly annoyed parent. Sounds silly to the kids of today, I'm sure, but it was entertaining for me, and it helped me to make an unexciting task go more quickly.

I was never bored as a child. This sort of admission was sure to result in work being assigned instantly, since idle hands are the devil's playground, and my mother is way too sincere a Christian to allow the devil any loitering time in her space. I learned early never to admit that I didn't have something going on that needed tending to, because the work she assigned was never a discouragement to boredom. Much better to pick your evil, I always say.

If I had nothing else to do, and there was no imaginary game enticing me, I read a book. It seems that children barely read any more, they are always hooked into their i-Pod or their video game or their portable DVD or the computer. But there is something about a book that cannot be replaced - it is concrete and tangible, and it allows us to experience the story in a whole different way.

I have never seen the Chronicles of Narnia, nor have I seen the Tolkien rings series. I read the books, several times over, and studied them in college. I do not want to ruin the picture in my mind of each character, each location, each facet of the story, by having it sullied by someone else's vision. A good book conjures up pictures in the mind, and the story plays out for real in your own imagination. There is no real picture that can compare to my vision of Middle Earth. When I was reading, I was living it, and it is the only reality I need. You cannot get that visceral experience from Cliff's Notes, nor can you experience it from a DVD.

Sometimes I walk down the toy aisle of Target or WalMart, and I breathe deeply and smell the plastic baby dolls, the Barbie dolls, the crayons, and I am transported instantly back to childhood, when each of those things presented me with endless opportunities, vistas to conquer, whole scenarios to create in my mind. It takes only a whiff of the new plastic, or the waxy crayon box, to remind me of days gone by, and dreams left off in mid-story.

I wonder, when Santa unloads his sleigh under the tree in the houses of today, what dreams will those children remember when they are middle aged? Will a crayon still smell as sweet? Or will they be middle aged rock band gurus, still waiting for their music to play? I say, save the children - buy a coloring book, and let them dream.

Gobble, gobble

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Thanksgiving Day is a tradition that Abraham Lincoln established for his own reasons more than a century ago, reasons that have little, or perhaps nothing, to do with the reasons we continue to celebrate this feasting day today.

While one might think there would be little to argue over, after all, what could possibly be more American than a day dedicated to food and the eating of it, there have been the little controversies over the years that make the history of the day interesting. But for most people, Thanksgiving Day is a holiday thoughtlessly entered into, a day for sanctioned gluttony, of both food and football, and a day for family.

My family, both growing up and now, are not the kind of families that make Thanksgiving Day interesting. While some families have fights and arguments and there is a lot of drama, excitement is not something that my own family does all that well.

We are more the low key type, where an argument usually takes about three words, and the strongest epithet we can come up with is, "Whatever." [You would be surprised how much emotion you can pack into that one little word.] We aren't Norman Rockwell, but we aren't the Osbornes, either. The only argument that will probably be heard around here today is which movie we will watch this evening while we consume tasty leftovers, and even that will be half hearted.

Thanksgiving is a time to enjoy seeing my college aged son for the first time since he left in August, and inevitably, his oldest friends, as well. Although I must say, I simply cannot, for the life of me, comprehend why his homecoming has to be accompanied by the creation of hundreds of egg rolls in my kitchen the night before Thanksgiving, half of which are still occupying space in my fridge where the leftovers should be going later today. I mean, really? Whatever. [See how well that works?]

Of course, I should probably be happy that he is at home, spending time with us, since a lot of college students come home and aren't really seen again until they are asking for gas money to return to school. You have to wonder where they are getting their food and shower, but I digress.

Thanksgiving Day is also the day of the big Christmas push. I am not talking about the push in the stores to make sure all Christmas decorations are up, and the shilling of Santa is off and running. Frankly, if there really were a Santa, I think he would be appalled at what he has become - the spokesperson for every product under the sun for a month of the year, all in the name of making a buck. Wasn't the whole point that Santa brought you something unexpected as a gift? No cost?

I also experience that push in my own home, as my lovely daughter gears up for the holiday gifting season by getting her list of desired items in order. Indeed, this year she has created a beautiful Excel spread sheet, complete with clickable links, so I can see and experience her list live and in color. She is always a thoughtful girl, so she has even included pricing and location, just to make it really easy for me.

Her main item of desire this year is yet another pet, this time a bunny rabbit, which she believes she needs to keep as a companion in her room, which is apparently lonely with only a Betta fish named Taffy to keep her company. Somehow, I do not see a bunny and a Jack Russell Terrier in the same household ending well, but I suppose it's barely possible it could work.

It seems my daughter has, in fact, inherited a few traits from me, first and foremost, a love of animals that surpasses the reasonable, which causes her to want every animal in her own personal zoo. You'll have to stay tuned for the final decision on that one, since she isn't going to live at home forever, and that bunny has a rather long life span. Somehow, I do not see this ending well for me, either.

We have Thanksgiving traditions at our house, just like everyone else. Among other things, I enjoy decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day, swinging into the holiday spirit, so to speak. We put up the pretty decorations, and transform the house from the ordinary into something much more than itself, and suddenly, you start to feel the magic that is the Christmas season.

I have recently read a couple of articles on the fast forwarding of Christmas, and whether this might not be a bad idea, overall. I noticed even Nordstrom's, that ultimate in trendy spending, has put its well shod shoe down on the Christmas push. I learned they have refused to decorate their stores or start celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving has been appropriately recognized, apparently a consumerism bastion of sanity in the midst of mall world. Who knew? I laud that impulse, though, and if I could afford to do so, I would spend all my clothing dollars in their store, just to reward them for their sanity stance.

I would have to postulate that we are not better off for having a longer Christmas season. One of the things that makes Christmas so special is the very limited time offer that it is. It is the ultimate in short term thinking, the holiday that rushes past before we can even catch our breath. We barely have time to get used to the decorations and the colors and the fantasy that is being weaved before we suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, find ourselves walking into church to sing the age old carols that welcome the real Christ into our celebration.

Thanksgiving Day is too often overlooked, shoved aside by a retail world which seems to sell the idea that if there isn't buying and giving involved, it's not a real holiday. I think, on the contrary, that Thanksgiving Day, much like the Fourth of July, is a real festival day, the old fashioned kind that celebrates family and our good fortune to have been born in this wonderful country.

Whether you are financially wealthy or indigent, if you were born in the United States of America, or if you live here honestly and with the sanction of the government, anything is possible for you. I have seen people move from homeless shelter to home ownership in just a few years. You can come from nothing and become President. You can start a small business, although the IRS will surely be looking right over your shoulder on that one, and can go from no one to someone. I don't believe it was an accident that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were Americans, because I think that creative, pioneering spirit that led our ancestors to these shores, and kept them pushing into the unknown, is somehow instilled into every citizen.

We are a country with so much wealth, we are able to argue about whether, and how much of it, should be redistributed to those who are less fortunate. We are a country with so much goodness, we try to feed the world and solve its problems, even when there are no answers. We have marvelous resources, both natural and human, and we consistently put them to use to make our world a better place, even if we disagree on what that means in detail.

Although there is certainly poverty in this country, we are also a people of great compassion, and donate in amounts that are simply breathtaking. When I do my voluneteering for Community LINC, rehabbing an apartment for a homeless family trying to escape their circumstances, I am always overwhelmed by the generosity of people who want to give. The last time we did that work, we received so much bounty that we have shelves of goods left over, which we are saving for another family, because it was too generous, and we need to spread the wealth around.

Even the homeless will have a feast today, I hope, because in this country of ridiculous bounty, no one should be without on this day of food and family. I am thankful, and grateful, to be living in a country where the poor are looked upon with compassion, and we do to the least of them what we would wish for ourselves.

There are many times that I find myself complaining about the misfortunes in my own life. But today, Thanksgiving Day, I find my mind wandering across the globe to a place where there would be gratitude for the ability to simply put enough food on the table, and there would be no need to choose which child will eat today. I can go to the bank, and as long as I have put money in, I can take it out, while in other places, they have to stand in line each day to receive pennies back for the dollars deposited.

There is a place in this world where inflation is so extreme, it is measured in the millions of percent, while we complain about single digit inflation that makes the luxuries a little more costly for us. We complain about the price of gas, while people in other parts of the world do not even have bicycles.

Today, on Thanksgiving Day 2008, I look in the paper and realize how very, very blessed I have been. I reflect on the reality that I could have been born across the world, on the continent that is rightly called The Dark Continent, not because of skin color, but because of the lack of development and the lack of law and order and the lack of basic needs being met.

While they have a wealth of natural resources that should have made the continent a world leader, instead it is a world shame - a constant reminder that anarchy is the road to ruin, and that self-interest will destroy all opportunity. I am thankful today that I have been given the birth right of being a United States citizen, a passport into a club so exclusive that people the world over die for the opportunity to join.

On a more personal scale, I am also thankful for the things that everyone in this country will also give thanks for today - my wonderful family, the roof over my head, my lovely warm bed to sleep in every night. I have a decent opportunity to make a living doing an honest day's work, [if I can ever figure out what I want to be when I grow up, anyway,] I have food on the table, and clothes on our backs, and a future to look forward to in which good things may happen. In the end, if you have those things, you have everything you need. And for that, I am thankful.

Most important of all, I'm thankful I wasn't born a turkey (although I have been called that a time or two, I must admit.) I am thankful I will be the one eating, and not the one being eaten today.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and yours, from me and mine!

Seasons....

There is a lovely passage in Ecclesiastes that talks about the changes time induces in the pageant of a human life.

To every thing there is a season,
And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Simon and Garfunkel aside, there is a lot of truth in those words, a truth that I see more clearly as time passes, and I approach that season of life known as middle age. [Yes, I am approaching mid-life, I am most emphatically not already there. I refuse to admit that at 48, I am already on the downhill slope. All right, I will acknowledge that I may be teetering awkwardly on the precipice, but I will not go down without a fight.]

If the 20's are a time to accumulate, the 40's seem to be a time to disperse. Over the last few years, I have begun economizing on everything. I have cut back on snacks. I don't really buy bottled water any more. I try to purchase only what we absolutely need. Lack of financial where-with-all has certainly been an imperative to that tighter spending, of course, but I think I was heading there, anyway, because it has come pretty easily to me.

I realized, like a light bulb going on in my head a few years ago, that there is a limit to the amount of "stuff" a person needs in a lifetime. I think I may be reaching the saturation point in my own life, because where it used to be fun to acquire, right now, more stuff is starting to sound like more work. The more you have, the more you have to put away, or find a space for, or do something with. I'm too tired, too packed, too overwhelmed, to find space for more stuff that I don't really need.

It used to be kind of fun to receive an invitation to a home party where something will be sold. There was entertainment value in the challenge of finding something for myself that I could justify on the basis of need. These days, I view those party invitations with skepticism and dismay. I have enough tupperware to throw three parties. I have pampered my inner chef until it's well done. I have bejeweled myself and my daughter like royalty. The candles flaming around my home are the remnants of a poorly made decision more years ago than I care to admit. [I will just say that when you pay that much for a candle, you want to get your money's worth out of it, so you don't want to just burn it up. Ah, the irony of it all.]

I am just no longer in acquiring mode, it seems. I have reached belonging saturation, and there is simply no more need, to say nothing of room in my house, for additional stuff. In fact, I have aggressively gone through my possessions recently to winnow out the unneeded items, ruthlessly whittling down the wants from the needs and passing them to a charitable organization that may have more use for them.

I hasten to say that this does not mean that I no longer have anything that is important to me, that everything is on the block and up for grabs. I have some precious items that are priceless to me, and couldn't be replaced for any amount of money, even if they don't look all that valuable to someone else's eyes. And there are certainly things I would like to have that are not currently under my ownership, too.

But for the most part, the things I want now are not the flashy little things that you want in your 20's, the things that you work so hard to acquire so that you can show the world how successful you are. When you are 20, it's all about quantity, it seems, whether you are talking about friends or possessions. It's a race to see who can get the most, and the winner is the one with the most of everything.

My true wish list consists of boring fare these days. At 40, I am not looking for flashy clothes or the latest hairstyle. Instead, I desperately need new carpeting for my living room and I would love to install hardwood floors in my dining room. Of course, there is obviously no point, with a cat and two dogs who feel free to vomit on any piece of carpeting not covered by a piece of furniture. In fact, they seem to prefer the areas that are right out in the middle of the floor, if you want to know the truth.

I would love to replace the doors and windows in my house, because the ones I have leak air like a sieve, and rot out more often than I can keep up with them. I would replace them with vinyl exterior windows, so that I would never again have to deal with a rotted sill or a rotted frame, thus saving me hours of grief and a lot of money in the long run.

I would like to replace my roof, which is 13 years old and probably not going to last forever, or even much longer. I would like to have the house repainted, because I hate the color, and want to make a change. I would like to buy a new fridge, one that is more functional, and which would actually hold enough food for the three of us.

Those are not the exciting things we put on our wish list to Santa. The season of childhood is magical, and Santa is the biggest purveyor of the glittering fairy dust thrown into the eyes of children. When I was growing up, I didn't really believe in Santa, because that was not the way my parents presented him to me. I have no regrets about that, I raised my own children the same way. There is a reason for that particular season, and it is not to have an overweight stranger bringing presents through the chimney. I probably don't really get, at a gut level, what Santa means to children, because he never meant that to me. But Christmas is still magical to me, even with too much to do, and the magic mostly shoved onto the back burner along with everything else.

When I make out my Christmas list, those things won't be on it. They are my heart of heart wishes, the things I wish I had the money to buy, the things that I would spend my lottery win on, if I participated. But it's not the season of my life to make those changes, it seems, so instead, I will focus on the smaller objectives, and ask the Santa's in my life for things that are reasonable and attainable, and hopefully frivolous and fun as well.

My daughter asked me the other day what I wanted for Christmas, and before I could respond, she said, "Don't say nothing, because you know we are all going to get you something, so it might as well be something you want." How to explain to a 16 year old that I already have everything I want? Anything more is almost too much, so bountiful has God been to me in the seasons I have experienced so far.

But this changing of the seasons goes deeper than just the material belongings we can see and touch, the tangibles that we treasure and insure and lose sleep over. There are seasons in our relationships as well, and as we pass through the various stages in our life journey, we pick up and drop off a wide variety of people for different reasons at different times.

In talking with several close friends recently, I have realized that I am not the only one who is aware of this change. Many of them agreed that this seems to be the time of life in which we look at the relationships in our lives, and make decisions about their importance to us, and for the first time, we let some go because we are just not in the same place in our lives any more.

That is not a statement about the people themselves. They are, for the most part, wonderful people, who were once very close to our hearts, but who, for a variety of reasons, are now in a different place in our circle, and we in theirs. Sometimes you move, and realize the affinity was one of proximity more than actual affection, so you allow that relationship to fade as naturally as the sun will set in the Western sky. Sometimes you have a sharp disagreement about something so dear to your heart that you simply cannot overlook the breach. Sometimes there is an overstepping of boundaries so profound that it cannot be overcome. And sometimes, the relationship is simply no longer reflective of who you are or what is important to you, and it fades like the pictures in an old album - cherished, valued, important, but real in memory only.

I have learned that the 40's are a busy time of life. For most women that age, their children are in high school and college, so they find themselves in the work force and trying to catch up with the time, and co-workers, that have rushed past them. They do the difficult double duty of being full time mothers while still being productive full time workers who climb the ladder of employment success. You have endless rounds of activities, which require enormous amounts of time and effort, squeezed in when you aren't busy doing everything you normally do for everyone else. Your sense of yourself gets lost, at least temporarily, because you are simply too busy living everyone else's lives at that moment.

During the hustle and bustle, it seems that it is all too easy to lose track of old friends, and even near ones, sometimes. You don't usually mean for it to happen, but one day, you realize, when you make out your Christmas card list or you look through a photo album, that you haven't seen someone in a very long time, maybe years, and you aren't even sure where they are in their lives any more.

A week or so ago, my Bible study group discussed this very issue, in the context of the Bible study for this month. It is a sensation that was familiar to every woman in the room, each of us, I think, recalling a relationship from the past that had faded away for one reason or another.

We are, our intrepid little group, a mixed bunch. At 48, I am the youngest, and am fortunate enough to learn what is in store for me first hand from the varied wisdom of everyone else. We are in the various seasons of life, like everyone, with some being grandmothers with grandchildren not much younger than the youngest child we have amongst us. Yet we have more commonalities than differences, and although we have a wide array of personalities, no two of us are anything alike, we do benefit from and vicariously enjoy life through each other's eyes. And we have the opportunity to learn from each other, as well.

And so it was, when we talked about the seasons of friendship, that one of those women told a tale from her own life that reminded us all of the one thing about the seasons that is most important. She told how she and her husband had best friends, with whom they did many things and spent a lot of time.

The friends moved to another city, and they slowly drifted apart, until one day, she spotted her friend in town on a visit, and the friend hadn't even called to tell her they were there. How hurtful, how evident, that the friendship had lost it's way, and the demise had already occurred unannounced.

But there was a happy ending after all, because the couple moved back to town, they slowly reconnected, and found that they did, indeed, have as much in common as they always had, and they are, once again, the closest of friends. The storyteller made it clear that the loss went both ways, and that the reunion did as well, but the real lesson is that in the hustle and bustle of life, sometimes we do drop a ball or two, and it can roll away.

But as long as you know where the wall is, as long as the ball eventually stops rolling, you don't have to chase it to find it again. Sometimes, you just have to wait for it to stop rolling, and then you can walk over and pick it up.

If there is someone you have lost - a friendship gone wrong, a relationship that has taken a wrong turn - remember that in the course of life, the seasons change. You never know, one day you may find yourselves in each other's paths once again, exploring the new season together.