Caustically Optimistic

The Thrill of Hope

I am optimistic. I am a counter. In two months and seventeen days I will be thirty years old. In one year, one month and three days Barack Obama will be President of the United States. In nine minutes I have to get off my duff and get ready for work.

Winter intersession is in four days. The students know it is coming and even if we didn’t tell them they can feel it in their bones. When I taught in Connecticut the students knew the day before a cancellation that they wouldn’t be in school the next day and misbehaved accordingly. They have a sixth sense.

There is a joke at work, because someone said this to me: that I do the bare minimum at work; and I don’t care about the students or my coworkers. Chaos Bean, my sister, said this is horse hockey because I only care about my work, my students and my coworkers. During this time before the winter emancipation I try and do something nice every day for a coworker who isn’t suspecting it.

I brought Casey a drink – I have no idea what it is, really I can’t understand any of the words I say to the barista when I order it – and when I brought it to her she said, “How did you know I needed this?” How do you not know someone needs Starbucks? If you don’t drink Starbucks that may be the leading reason you are crabby and unbearable this month. Think about it. I decided this was a good idea and would do it the next day for another coworker.

I got Stefanie a peppermint hot chocolate one day from Starbucks. I also got myself a hot mocha. Seeing my hands full with other groceries the barista gave me a carrier my drinks. Okay, I’m kidding – I had to practically beg for it. I wish I hadn’t. I keep my phone in my cup holder so I left the drinks in the cardboard carrier on the passenger seat. This is never a problem; I do it all the time. What is a problem is swerving to miss being hit by the person talking on their cell phone in their German SUV. I would been tempted to throw the coffee and mocha that didn’t summersault around my car (and onto my leather seats) at her when she rolled down her window to berate me for honking if she had not been a parent of a child at my school. A bad way to start your day is having coffee and chocolate all over your new car. A worse way to start your day is to assault a parent or anyone else. I will arbitrarily fail their child instead.

Instead of getting something nice for Stefanie I ended up having a sip of peppermint hot chocolate and a nice tip for the woman who detailed my car the next day – even if I had to finish the job myself. Later in the day, before getting the car cleaned, I offered a ride to the holiday party to Kim and Mark. Mark got just as much of the hot chocolate that I got for Stefanie, only all over his pants.

I’m not sure what I am going to do today for a coworker – it has to be a random act of kindness to work – but I know it will not involve hot liquids, melted chocolate or my car. If we don’t hang together at this time we will hang separately. I just hope that the other acts of kindness are less maintenance for me but continues to cause laundry for Mark. As long as it keeps spirits up and keeps hope alive for four more days, I'm doing my job. Go do yours.

Fifty Points for Gryffindor!

Emily got Christmas Offerings by Third Day for Christmas; it is one of the Christmas albums on iTunes that celebrates the Mass of Christ and not the Mass of Hallmark. In a contradiction to the type of music I would normally enjoy it sounds like the ‘joyful noise’ I have a hard time calling ‘music’ used to worship at Mega-Churches. Emily knows that (for me) Santa, his red-nosed reindeer and singing snowmen take the sacred moment when God became incarnate to sacrifice himself and save us from ourselves and cheapens it into something you buy at the mall, exchange with coworkers you merely tolerate and share with family that shames you like you do the Superbowl and Secretary’s Day. The Fourth of July or Veteran’s Day are more sacred to most people than Christmas. When Emily does something clever I always award ten points to Gryffindor (her house) but this was over-the-top so I think fifty points are in order.

So, when I celebrate Christmas bells don’t jingle, fat men in red fur lined suits don’t bring me presents and reindeer are more a traffic hazard at my old Kentucky home and not something whose feces adorns our roofs. What I like about this album from Emily is that it steers clear of this bastardization of the holiday. It also has the verse in What Child Is This? that people like to exclude where the lyricist wrote, “Nails, spear shall pierce him through. The Cross be borne for me, for you.” It takes the cute right out of Christmas when people have to remember that it happened for a reason.

Jesus became incarnate as man to teach us how to live, to heal a hurting world and die to save it from itself. This incredible mission, sacrifice began at Christmas. Christmas prepares us for Easter. For the life of me I can’t understand why people who not only don’t believe in this, anything that Christ taught, and are hostile to Christ would celebrate the holiday commemorating his birth.

If you’re having trouble wrapping your brain around that idea then leave Protestants scoffing at Roman Catholics for venerating saints all year long AND THEN teaching their kids to worship Saint Nicolas for toys made by political prisoners in China for later.

It rolls back to what Gretchen said about religion – that it was man made and used to sow guilt and worry. I disagree with her, profoundly, about this but I haven’t walked in her shoes to have the perception that determines her reality. I would counter that religion may do that, but faith – at least mine – liberates, empowers and emboldens with a sense of mission.

Christmas is the time to rededicate to the mission of living rightly, healing a world that is hurting and give your life over to saving humanity from itself. Christmas is the time to rest the hostility from your heart; the hostility toward Christ, toward your brother, toward yourself.

Gift giving at this time is something I normally avoid – my family has almost given it up completely – but I’m glad Emily gave me this album. It’s almost a microcosm of her friendship and gift in my life, in the lives of people lucky enough blessed to know her: it reminds me of what is most important, what it is all really about.