Christmas - How To Be Happy In Spite of One's Self

Christmas - How To Be Happy In Spite of One's Self,


Back when I worked at the Radio Ranch, I had a bright yellow poster in my
office. It was entitled, "How To Be Happy In Spite of One's Self."

Joyce Meyer gave a sermon about that a couple of years ago. She said as
long as the Devil can make you just walk around, staring at your own navel,
going, "What about me?! What about me?!" -- then he owns your butt.

So--

1. Go to your favorite local grocery store. Experiment around and see
what's the biggest bag of dry dog food you can lift. Seven pounds? 15? 50? 75? And then haul it out to the local humane society. Walk a couple of those big,
graybeard dogs while you're out there.

2. Go to your favorite discount store and buy six pairs of mittens. Take
them to the local homeless shelter. And my friend who runs the AIDS hospice
says people at the very lowest end of the socioeconomic food chain have
problems with Sock Management. He believes all God's children get clean,
dry socks. He has a desk drawer full of them. D.D., who has run a homeless
women's and children's center, got corporate yuppies to buy plus size underpants, 30 pairs at a time, and donate them.

3. If you have a weekend, cover your oldest bedspread in flannelette. Find
some grade school kids to help you tack it with yarn and tie double bows.
Then take it down to the fire department. They'll give it to someone who's
lost everything in a house fire.

4. Hitch up the dog and go on a dusky, full-moon walk. Admire all those
Christmas lights. It takes a certain amount of brave maudlinism to spend $800 on exterior lights and what a way to love Christmas.

5. Go to Target and buy some half-price Christmas mugs. Fill them with
individually wrapped teabags and take them to your favorite librarians. Say,
"Thanks."

6. Take the loaf of bread you bought last week and tear it up outside, on
the lawn. The birds will have Christmas Dinner on you.

Last Christmas, I took Meals on Wheels to one woman who had two weeks to
live. When I asked her what I could pray for, she said, "Pray I don't see
New Year's." She was speaking from a zilcho quality of life situation.
But, us guys, us'uns, we have an embarrassment of riches. And we desperately need to,
in this woulda-coulda-shoulda, mass consumerism explosion of
gimme-gimme-gimme Commercial Christmas, center ourselves and think
outward-outward-outward.

It'll be swell.


Janelle