Taryn R. Hutchison's Blog: The Glorious Muddle, page 39

Gift-Giving: Have we gone too far?

After a week of being asked if I'd completed my Christmas shopping, I finally started it on Saturday. As I waited in the check-out line with a jostling swarm of people, carts overflowing with goodies, I was struck by the incongruity of the scene. What's up with the so-called bad economy?



That drove me to check the statistics. According to what I read, Americans will spend a total of anywhere from $400 billion to $584 billion for Christmas. The average comes out to $935 per person, with the majority going for gifts for family members and a sizeable chunk being spent on decorations and Christmas entertaining. Surprisingly, gifts for oneself ($99) edge out gifts for friends ($85). The typical pet owner will spend $46 on presents for their furry (or scaly) critter.



How do people struggling financially swing this? I went on to read that the average Joe will carry a credit card debt of $8,562. We complain about being broke and the economy being tough but we still choose to sink ourselves deeper into the mire. That begs the bigger question: Why?



Why do we feel a compulsion to buy gifts we can't afford? Do we think that we have to in order to be accepted or loved? Probably the idea of exchanging gifts started with the magi presenting Baby Jesus with frankincense, gold, and myrrh. Their offerings were an act of worship to the King of Kings. God tells us in His Word that He delights in loyalty more than sacrifice. He wants us - our whole hearts and our whole lives. There's absolutely nothing we can do to earn His love; His heart is big enough for the whole world and He freely gives of Himself.



Doesn't it follow that our family and friends also prefer the gift of us over our sacrifice? Even in this entitled and indulged culture, bombarded by advertisements attempting to persuade that a certain product makes life complete, we all long for something other than material goods. We want to know that someone took the time to think of us. Our presence to others is much more valuable than any present money can buy. And the best part is that it's free.



And so is the gift Jesus offers.

The Most (Wonderful) Time of the Year

The long-anticipated month of December is now upon us. I wonder, is it the most wonderful time of the year or just the most? Certainly, it's to be the busiest month of all. Decorating the house. Trimming the tree. Putting lights up outside. Christmas shopping. Wrapping gifts. Baking Christmas cookies. Mailing Christmas cards. On top of the already insane list we all share, I've added a new job with a one-hour daily commute. More stress.



Where will I find time to stop and reflect on the meaning of the season? How can I get back to the peacefulness and simplicity that I enjoyed when I lived in Eastern Europe? I long for those Christmas holidays devoid of the commercialism, pure celebrations of God becoming man. For a few years in the early 90s in Romania, no Christmas decorations were visible, gifts were scarce, but the holiday was greeted with enthusiasm by people long denied the chance to even speak the name of Jesus. I joined the throng on Christmas Eve, trudging through quiet snow-laden streets to a church celebration with nothing but an a cappella choir and white candlelight.



My dear friend, Gordana, who is quite deep and much more profound than me, wrote about pulling out a nativity set and finding all the figures but one intact. Baby Jesus was missing from the crèche. She drew the connection that Jesus is often the missing ingredient from our Christmas festivities. She also blogged about having to clear the clutter in her house to make room for her Christmas tree, likening it to getting rid of extraneous stuff in our lives to make room at the inn.



It's up to me to clear space in my life for Christ to reside in all His fullness, not relegating Him to a stable outside because I'm too busy. Too busy with the endless trappings of Christmas that I don't invite the One the season was meant to celebrate. It's not about finding time in our busy schedules. That will never happen. I need to intentionally make time, to set aside whole evenings for my favorite Christmas activity: sitting quietly on the sofa, with a fuzzy throw on my lap and a steaming cup of hot chocolate in my hands, listening to soothing Christmas carols and admiring the soft white lights on the tree. And reflecting on the most wonderful gift ever given.

Stand Up for Thanksgiving!

We should be outraged. Thanksgiving, the best and most uniquely American holiday, is being squeezed out, gobbled up by the growing commercialism of Halloween and Christmas. As soon as Labor Day sales were finished, stores put out Halloween costumes and even Christmas decorations. Trick-or-treat candy still fills the desktop canisters in my office while radio stations converted to "all Christmas all the time" a couple weeks ago. Where's Thanksgiving fit in?



This year, retail workers across America will gobble down their turkey TV dinners before scurrying off to work with antacids in their pockets. Every year, the Black Friday shopping extravaganza has begun earlier and earlier. Now, it starts on Thursday. Thanksgiving has evolved into Gray Thursday.



When I was on staff with Campus Crusade at Berkeley, my team would put on a huge Thanksgiving feast for hundreds of international students. That tradition continued during my decade living abroad. Since then, Steve and I have hosted countless people who don't have family nearby to spend the day with – whether they are college students, widows, internationals, or one-parent families. At each of these dinners, we take the opportunity to explain the significance of this day, set apart - since the very first year colonists inhabited this land - for the purpose of thanking God for His many blessings.



How can you compare a day to remember God's goodness with grateful hearts to dressing like vampires and sucking candy out of strangers' hands at Halloween? Or even the way we observe Christmas now, the celebration of God become man reduced to a season of indulging people with gifts they don't need and we can't afford to buy. Our little darlings' visions of sugarplums have been replaced by an expectation of more costly Wiis, iPads, and Xboxes.



In one of my favorite Christmas films of all time, the original Miracle on 34th Street, one of Kris Kringle's devotees bemoans the "isms" in our world. "The woist of these is materialism," he says. What would he say about Gray Thursday?



I, for one, refuse to shop on Thursday or even Friday; however, I must sheepishly admit that I will probably do some on Saturday. Whether you shop or not, I hope you take time this weekend to reflect on the abundant blessings God has lavished on us all. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Cultural Lessons at the Grocery Store

Now that I'm a working woman again, I had to buy my Thanksgiving groceries today. On a Saturday. The last time I did that, I lived in Marin County, California. The difference startled me.



In Marin, grocery shoppers are cut-throat any day, but especially before Thanksgiving. Patrons whipped their carts through the aisles aggressively, mirroring the way they drive their cars on the freeway. No one seemed to care who was in their way. I left the store bruised from carts rammed into my shins. I did not feel very thankful; it didn't seem like anyone in that store did.



Today, in North Carolina, no one was in a hurry. People pushed their "buggies" in a civilized, even genteel, manner. Two older ladies stopped to chat with me about their Thanksgiving plans. I watched a high school boy commandeer his grandmother's cart, sweetly reaching products on high shelves for her. He even smiled at me. It was a world apart.



My approach is somewhere in the middle. In the past, I've been irritated by Marinites and highly critical of them. But today, I must admit, I felt impatient at times, wanting to hurry so I could get out of there and enjoy my day off, now a rarity. I found myself giving suggestions to the checkers who stood idly, waiting for the manager to come to their aid. I asked if they could page him. I hinted to a gentleman who parked his buggy in the middle of the aisle that maybe he could scoot it over a bit. No matter what state or even country I find myself in, I like to help people become more efficient. Usually, for some strange reason, my help is not received with enthusiasm.



Today, besides my momentary impatience, my grocery shopping experience was, well, pleasant. People were human and kind. I bought Thanksgiving groceries with a thankful heart. Maybe the South is rubbing off on me. One can only hope.

Rich in (Facebook) Friends

At the last writers' conference I attended, I didn't have projects to pitch, so I was able to soak up as much as I could and actually enjoy my meals without vying for an editor's attention. In networking with an acquisitions editor, he said he would not take on an unknown author unless that person had a large online presence and could participate in his own marketing. I asked him what would constitute a platform that would make him take notice. He quickly replied, "1,000 Facebook friends." At that point, I had 600-some and I thought I was doing pretty well.



I am pretty goal-oriented and so I added the Facebook thing to my personal goals. In 2011, several of my short-term writing/marketing dreams came true. My book (without any marketing budget at all) reached a sales record of 1,000 copies, and then quickly reached the next step of 1,500 copies with one big sale. Because of that, 100% of the money we invested in publishing a few years ago was returned to us. My blog and website also continue to get a decent number of hits. And the book was translated and re-published in Romanian. All good things.



But I think the goal I'm most excited about happened last week: I got my 1,000th Facebook friend. That brings me joy not just because I fulfilled that editor's requirement. I'm happy because I have found friends, otherwise lost to me, from as far back as high-school (I didn't realize technology had reached my hometown) or from far-away places. I love hearing from friends on the other side of the world in real time. I really don't care whether my book makes a profit, and it's hard to imagine that it ever would. But I do care tremendously that the message God gave me to write would touch people's hearts and change their lives; so what I cherish are the encouraging messages I keep getting that attest to that.



The true riches in my life don't have anything to do with income. I have invested my life in significant ministry with people with whom God caused my path to intersect. I am rich in friends. And that's what matters to me.

My New Job (Hopefully, My Last Job)

The long wait is finally over. As of a few hours ago, I am employed again.



All week, I've been expecting news about the position I interviewed for last, never leaving my phone out of arm's reach. Until yesterday.  Steve and I drove to a town an hour away to meet some friends from Budapest, and I was a bit nervous. I checked my messages late in the day as we left our friends, and since there were none, we stopped for dinner on the way home. I ended up missing THE call by just one minute! On my voicemail, the Human Relations guy sounded somber, not at all upbeat like I'd expect if he was bearing good news. He said they'd finalized the decision; he had a full day of meetings the next day but promised he'd snatch a few minutes to call with the results.



Another day spent next to the phone, but not wasted.  After a sweet time of prayer, I prepared for a Bible study I lead at church, studying lies women believe about God.  It seemed as though God was preparing me for disappointing news, aligning my perspective with His own. I affirmed back to Him that even if someone else got the job, I'll still believe that He's good, that He's sovereign, that He loves me and has my best interests at heart. I told Him I'll trust that He has a purpose in me not getting that job, and that His purpose is for my welfare.



After six hours glued to the phone, Steve encouraged me to go ahead and take a walk. He promised he'd be there to get the call. Naturally, as soon as I left, the phone rang.



I returned to find my husband with compassionate eyes full of pity. He knew the decision. The H.R. guy said he wouldn't make me wait any longer (I've been waiting on this particular job for over four months). From my husband's countenance, it was obvious that I wasn't chosen. My first thought was to keep my promise to God, regardless of my feelings, and express my trust by thanking Him in all things.



"I'm so sorry, Sweetheart," Steve said. "You got the job." I never suspected my husband's latent acting talent. Together, Steve and I thanked God – from hearts overflowing rather than out of sheer obedience. I also asked God to help me never take this job for granted, humbled to be chosen from a pool of 72 applicants in an area where unemployment rates are off the charts.



I've come full circle in my working life. I'll be at Lenoir-Rhyne University, a small Liberal Arts school reminiscent of my alma mater, Salisbury University.  My position as Administrative Assistant in the President's Office feels like my first professional job as a student secretary in the Dean of Student's Office. I'm thrilled to be at a college campus once again, after investing years of my life working with Campus Crusade.  This will be more than a job for me; it will be a place of ministry. I'm hoping this will be my last job and that I'll end the way I began: pouring my life into students.

A Birthday Bond

My husband and I are not an ordinary couple. Probably the most unique thing about us is that we share the same birthday. The other is that we got married later in life.



When we met, I was in my late twenties and Steve in his late thirties. We discovered early on in our friendship that we were born on the same day; I even remember Steve playing me a Randy Stonehill song called "Turning Thirty" the year I achieved that milestone. (This year, I played him a song, but I won't say why. For some undisclosed reason, I chose the Paul McCartney song, "When I'm Sixty-four.")



Then I moved overseas for a decade and we had more birthday milestones apart. But we always remembered each other on our special day. Over the years, I've had three other good friends who share my birthday, and I feel a special bond with each of them. Probably you do, too.



When Steve and I got married less than a year after I returned, a mere fourteen years after we met, it seemed like the most natural thing, what God had in mind for us all along. After all, we already had the birthday bond.



And the joy of that day has now doubled. Each year, I get to celebrate it with my favorite person. It just doesn't get any better than that.

We're Shrinking!

You've probably heard people say the world is getting smaller when referring to the real-time interconnectedness around the globe. I love being able to hear from friends in Europe or Asia minutes after posting something on Facebook. It almost (but not quite) feels like I'm sitting right there with them, sharing a cup of coffee. News reports from the other side of the planet are available within minutes online.



But there's another way that the world seems to be shrinking. It's getting smaller because we're getting bigger. Every day, more people call our planet home.



The world population didn't reach its first billion until 1804. That took about 5,000 years. After that, it took a little over a century to attain the two billion mark in 1927. And then 32 years to hit the next milestone – three billion in 1959. That means that when I was born, there were only two billion plus (practically three billion . . . I'm not that old) inhabitants on earth. As of yesterday, there are officially seven billion of us. We have more than doubled in my lifetime.



The growth keeps speeding up. We achieved four billion just 15 years later, in 1974 - the year I graduated from high school. The world reached five billion in 1987, six billion in 1998, and seven in 2011. The experts predict that we'll be at eight billion by 2025.



This may not be as interesting to you as it is to me. But what I hope grips us all is the fact that there are more people every day who need the basics of life: food, water, safety, and love. Jesus came to earth to seek and to save the lost, to love them with an everlasting love, and He transferred that task to us. There are now seven billion human souls who need a Saviour. What are we going to do about that?

Costumes and Candy

I'm excited about Halloween. However, I'm tired of being bombarded by candy everywhere for a month or more. And I'm bothered by our society's fascination with vampires and the occult. And I don't like it that Halloween is now second to Christmas, way beyond Easter in most Americans' minds.



So maybe it's not Halloween that excites me. Here's what I do love: Dressing up. Costume parties. The humor and creativity that goes into making a costume. I refuse to ever stoop to a store-bought one. My mother always crafted my costumes by hand and I took home a prize most years. Maybe a little of her creativity rubbed off on me. I just dug up an ancient photo I hope you'll enjoy of my college roommates and I sporting Halloween costumes I made for us out of pillowcases. We won the $100 prize and split it four ways that year; we thought we were rich.



Last year was the first time since we've been married that Steve and I have had trick-or-treaters come to the door. And they came for three nights straight. In California, not only are people less trusting, but our door was a level below the street and even people we invited over had trouble finding it. Every Halloween, we'd buy candy, nobody would show, and I'd end up eating most of it. This weekend, I'll be ready for the little tykes, armed with my fig newtons and wearing some dazzling costume. I haven't settled on the outfit yet, but one thing I do know. I will buy a treat that I'm not tempted to eat. So, fig newtons . . . or maybe figs, here we come.

My Book made a National Reading List

Exciting news! My book was chosen to be on the 2012 Reading List for United Methodist Women. I'm thrilled since they have 40,000 women members nationwide. And I'm honored because my book is in the same category (Missions Education) as one by my writing mentor, Kay Marshall Strom. The only other reading list I've been selected for was our small town library's summer plan of traveling the world through books, and I was pretty excited about that, too.



Besides this Methodist reading list, I've had a short story published in a Catholic book, I've worked at a Southern Baptist seminary, I'm interviewing for a position at a Lutheran college, and I've been asked to speak at a Presbyterian women's conference. And the organization I've invested the most years in, Campus Crusade, is inter-denominational. I guess the denominational label has never been important to me; following Jesus Christ is all that matters.



I'm thankful whenever anyone wants to read my meager book, hoping that their vision of our awesome God will be expanded and they'll be encouraged to trust Him more and take the next step of faith. My ultimate prayer is that God will be glorified through my story. And so I rejoice.



http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umw/programs/readingprogram/buy/?c=7572&SR=11