Wayside Pulpit

Authentic Giving

Today I bought some gifts for the "angels" on my parish Angel Tree. An Angel Tree, most often, is an actual tree that has ornaments that list items for needy families. You take an ornament, buy the items and place them under the tree. The parish then gets these gifts to those who needed them.

Yet I wondered as I was standing in line to buy a winter coat why church communities only do this at Christmas. Why not March? August? or even monthly. What is it about Christmas that moves a parish to give gifts to those who need them.

If I were a less cynical soul, I could say it was the over abundance of the spirit of giving that motivated people to give gifts to strangers. Yet, how many of us are actually filled with a spirit of giving? I think it is more that we are saddled with the obligation of giving. Yet, I do not think it is this obligatory need to buy for others that motivates us to take an angel from an Angel Tree.

I think we take those angels because we feel guilty. We feel guilty not because we have more than enough, but because we cannot seem to find the strength to stand up and bring down the system of obligatory giving. We have been tamed to believe that at Christmas we must give to be loved and to be loving. Yet, we also know, deep down inside, that this belief is a lie. If we did not know, we would not buy gifts for strangers; strangers that we cannot love and who cannot give us love in return.

Angel trees allow us to give for no other reason than giving. We know this and hope that even one act of authentic giving can somehow compensate for our weakness in the face of a capitalist machine that has figured out how to commodify love.

Clinic

To All Those Who Fight For the Life of the Unborn Child --

If I could ask of you one thing, it would be to turn to the lives of the born, flesh and blood child that walks in your midst, perhaps even in your own home. If you fight to stop souls from being removed from wombs, I ask you to turn your passion to the souls of living children that are being crushed and removed, day by passing day.

The Market cares not for the soul of your child, at least not an individual and self-actualized soul. It wants to take your child, out of the womb of endless possiblity and create a little brand loyal fetus. A dead fetus that cannot think without being told what to think, that cannot buy without being told what to buy, that cannot live without being told how.

If you really believe that you are responsible for the unborn child, I ask you to see the unborn in those already living. I ask you to see the potential in those children in your care, and open your eyes to how society, and its foundational belief that happiness comes from buying - both things and ideas, is killing that unborn child.

The first commandment is, "You shall not worship any other God but the LORD." And, just one honest venture under a tree on Chirstmas morning, or a birthday party for a ten year old, or a watchful trip through Toys R Us will show you, bitterly, how society has failed in following this primary Law. It will take honest and prayerful examination, but if you can open your heart, abortion in action will be revealed to you in all sorts of spaces and places.

By the Power of God that you have been granted by your faith, I beg you to realize that society is killing our children. The marketing that is geared directly to them, in all forms and in all places, is vacuuming up that which is unique, beautiful, powerful and unborn in each and everyone of them.

Protest all that is important, lest there be nothing left to protest.