you and i (pt. 2)

Pt. 2

"Oh, let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance."

What Giving Should Mean To Us This Christmas

You know those really crappy acronym-y things that you make with the letters of your name?

Spunky

Awesome

Ridiculous

Alive

Honeybunchesofoats

Yeah. I hate these things. I mean, I put them into cards sometimes to be funny/sentimental, but really, this is a stupid classroom activity.

But back in eighth grade, I wanted to make the best name-letter...activity...ever! and so I looked up words in the dictionary so that I could sound smart. Go figure. I don't quite remember what all the words were in general, but I remember using the word "altruistic" as one of my "A" words. I had found it in the dictionary in one of my sixth grade "My Word of the Day" exercises, and I thought it'd be nice to use it again, especially since it sounds smart.

I remember presenting my little acronym-y thing to the rest of the class, and as predicted, no one knew what "altruistic" meant. So I explained it to them, you use it to describe someone who is selflessly devoted to the welfare of others. Okay, maybe I didn't use those exact words, but I said something along those lines. And hey, it wasn't a lie, because both then and now, I would say I put a significant amount of effort into making sure people are happy/well-faring. But I remember this one girl asking me, "Oh, so do you do a lot of volunteer work?" This girl was the vice-president of Jr. Beta. I was taken aback, because I didn't think I would have to justify my adjectives. If I said so, it must have been true, right? Goodness.

I stammered out a "sort of," and sat back down. My English teacher was impressed with my vocabulary selection, as predicted, but I was not impressed with that girl's critical question. Looking back, it wasn't a pointed question or anything; she just genuinely wanted to know. But that question has pretty much haunted me since that day. Am I worthy of being called altruistic? I'm no Mother Teresa, but hey, I've done my share of volunteer work since then...right? 

This Christmas, my family group did not spend $10 buying Secret Santa/White Elephant gifts for one another; before we found out what we were really going to do, I kind of wished we had done so. It would've been sweet, funny even. But what we ended up doing was we all donated the $10 we would've used to buy a sheep for charity. This sheep would be able to sustain a family in an underprivileged country by giving them wool and meat. Knowing this, I suddenly did not regret not doing a present game whatsoever. 

For what do we want lots and lots of money? There's no use denying it - everyone on this earth wants to be rich, or has had such a dream at one point in his/her life. And though there's always a negative connotation to the word "rich," my mom (like all parents) sees the word very closely tied to comfort. Not only can I live in comfort if I'm rich, but I can also donate a lot of money to other people so that they can live in comfort. Idealistic? Perhaps. The selfish human nature within me might make me veer from that goal. But I can surely try.

So with this statement, I think we can take Ingrid quite literally: be wealthy, loaded, hooked up with the ka-ching ka-ching. : ) But make sure you are altruistic. I mean, there's that whole thing about the mad difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of God. Make the most of your God-granted talents and efforts, be fruitful, earn lots of money...and always give generously. That's the spirit of Christmas, after all.