Be Not Idle

Today I came across the ugly, handmade box that once belonged to my maternal grandparents. Just a few whiffs of its musty contents – old letters and brittle copies of the Michigan Catholic - is enough to set off my allergies. But after they died, no one pitched it. It represents their charity. The carefully type-written letters, often dating back to the Depression years of my mother’s toddler-hood, convey thanks and prayers. 

My grandfather was a farmer and my grandmother a farmer’s wife who, in the tradition of the family, was the one who handled the pocketbook. She could squeeze a nickel until it screamed. There were children to feed and clothe, but they wanted to help out others. 

When my Aunt Alice passed the box to me, she showed the dates of the letters.  They had had no money to spare, yet they had managed to make donations. I was reminded of the Widow’s Mite. 

It’s odd I should come across the box again now.

Like most Americans who still have jobs, I have grown cautious with my money. However, I’m also aware of the growing need for food, shelter, and financial support. So how to be generous without being reckless and to save without being  stingy? 

Here are just a few ways that members of my community have given with what they have:

1. The charity rummage sale.   A few young mothers held a 50/50 yard sale, with 50% of their profits going to a local charity.  They didn’t have disposable income or time to volunteer outside the home, but they had some stuff to sell. Organizations also do this; e.g. this week my parish is accepting donations for their annual rummage sale. 

2. Scrip. My parish sells this and, now that I understand how it works, it looks like a painless way to give. In a nutshell, you buy a gift card for your usual goods and services. The seller of the card (the church or school) keeps 5-15% of the sale. For example, you buy a $100 gift card for the grocery store. The church or school keeps $5-15 and the store gets the rest. Your wallet doesn’t feel pinched, since you still buy $100 worth of groceries with the card.

3. BOGO Giving.  A couple told me about this last spring. Their children’s school had a can drive for the local food pantry. They found an easy way to contribute: When there was a Buy One, Get One Free sale, one time went into their cupboard and the other went into a box for the food pantry.

4. The Change Jar. (Or the ”Hope-and-Change Jar”, if you like.) This works well for guys who hate carrying change. Or fed-up moms who are tired of family members who don’t empty their pockets before throwing clothes into the laundry.  Every time you have a coin, drop it in a jar. Once every month or two, donate the money.  

5. Curb-side Refurbs. If you’re handy and see something on the curb that you can fix up, then you have a gift to share. So many people do this out of necessity, but it can also be charity. Years ago in Ann Arbor, I bought a 10-speed bike for $60 from a man who rebuilt and refurbished bikes salvaged from the garbage. A cancer survivor, he donated the proceeds to help the families of cancer patients who traveled to the University of Michigan hospital system. 

I’m sure you can think of other ways to give, even when it seems you have nothing to spare.

In nominating Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Pres. Obama was fulfilling his commitment to choose someone with “empathy”. Of course, empathy can interfere with justice and fairness. Concern grew after the publicizing of a speech she gave in which she remarked that “a wise Latina” woman just might be a better judge than a white man.

As Charles Schumer (D, NY) said of another judge’s nomination, “His beliefs are so well known, so deeply held, that it’s very hard to believe — very hard to believe — that they’re not going to deeply influence the way he comes about saying, ‘I will follow the law.’”

Except that when Schumer was saying it, the “beliefs” in question were religious beliefs. Now that doesn’t seem to matter. Evidentally, we’re supposed to empathize with the beliefs of the candidate.

Willian McGurn has a piece in the Wall Street Journal about The Catholic Double Standard. Read it, if only to get great insights like the explanation of judging without personal prejudice:

What matters is the law, not the personal feelings. When judges follow this path, they take some of the heat out of culture wars. That’s because those who want to change the law — pro-life or pro-choice — have to do it the way our Founders intended: through their elected representatives.

The President of the United States is going to get into the Fox Sports broadcasting booth during the All-Star Game.

I don’t have a lot of confidence in the job he’s doing as President. Now it appears he’s heard the tech school ads: “You could have a career in broadcasting!” Why doesn’t he just go into the nearest high school and ask the counselors to give him an aptitude test? Although, that would mean that Joe Biden would lead the country… shudder!

I suppose it was only a matter of time before technology enabled a better, faster breed of jerk. (After all, CAD was part of its history – ha ha!)

My ex-boyfriend announced his engagement with a mass e-mail. The e-mail read thus:

SUBJECT: Ahem…
…she said YES!!!!

We broke up about a year and a half ago. He insisted we could remain friends. Our contact mainly consisted of e-mails.

He’d send me jokes and chain letters with lots of graphics. Periodically I’d ask about his dad and stepmother, his sister, his work on the night-shift, his studies… that sort of thing. His replies were nice, usually funny. In all that time, he never mentioned a new (or old) girlfriend. I believe the term actually in play was ”too busy for a relationship”.  

I used to find out such things naturally in conversation. In fact, after 20 years of dating, I prided myself on a hard-earned skill of sensing “hedging one’s bets.” That occurs when a guy keeps me around in case his current relationship doesn’t work.

But with technology, intuition goes out the window. Granted, my best friends have built long-term relationships with men they met on-line, including a still-strong marriage between Type-A Man and Miss Spontaniety.

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Swin flu is more than hysteria in Argentina. Until this past week, I had no idea that the swine flu (H1N1) was still a pandemic in some parts of the world. In Argentina, the number of cases has reached 2,485. Sixty people have died so far. Those totals are lower than other countries, such as Australia.

However, the Argentinian numbers have increased sharply. In less than a week, the reported number of deaths more than doubled. The number of cases jumped by 898 between the WHO’s July 3rd report to its most recent report.

An Argentinian aquaintance told me the normal 15-day school break has been extended to 30 days to prevent exposure. Her daughter is doing her work at home and faxing it in. Theatres and cinemas have closed, and children are not supposed to go shopping.

Her family hasn’t been able to get the vaccine, though a shortage isn’t being reported by the government. Meanwhile, tens of new cases are reported every day – and the death toll goes up. Doctors and medical workers are being pulled from their regular duties to handle the workload. That means surgeries have been cancelled, labs are processing only samples that have already been sent in, etc.

Part of the problem is that swine flu prefers cooler weather (although the new virus isn’t affected as much). Argentina’s weather is the opposite of North America, so it is experiencing winter now – prime flu season.

I decided to put all my favorite bookmarks into links. It doesn’t include all the sites to which I’m subscribed, but it’s a fair representation of writers I respect and handy resources.

Deej, the SciFi Catholic, is going to the seminary. He has listed the reasons he wants to be a priest. His #2 reason?

Wealth. …(W)e all know the Vatican has gigantic vats full of it, so much that if the Church only opened her greedy coffers, she could instantly solve all the world’s problems with her enormous monetary assets and still have enough left over to fund an ill-fated space program involving flying cathedrals and confused nuns.

I spit Coke Zero when I got to #7, just to warn you.

I noticed a couple weeks ago that rental signs appeared on the unused post office boxes. Now more signs of the times at the USPS.

From today until September, our post office is cutting back its hours. They now close at 3 pm. In a letter, the postmaster explained:

We are experiencing an ongoing decline in mail volume and we are seeing fewer customers in our lobby. As a responsible business, we have to preserve our operational efficiency and reduce operating costs to remain viable for the long-term.

On one hand, I’m glad they aren’t raising the cost of stamps again. And I can still get my mail before I go to work, if I get there when the lobby opens (now at 6:30 instead of 5 am).

I am as interested in reversing global climate change as anyone, but I fail to see how increasing taxes and random machete attacks on Ohio coal producers alone will solve the problem,” said Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). “Come on, people, there are plenty of other industries who deserve machete attacks, too.”

IowaHawk reveals opposition to the Cap-And-Trade’s Blood Sacrifice Amendment.

Lord Jesus, have mercy on all involved in this cowardly murder.

Attributed to a Muslim extremist group, the bomb went off in front of the cathedral, killing  5 people. Thank God it went off during Mass, rather than afterwards, when  people would have been exiting the cathedral.

The Pope released a statement here.