from Saturday Night Live Chris Rock, Nov. 1, 2014 "I got robbed on 48th and 8th a few years ago, I have not been back to 48th and 8th." A little over two years ago, we all watched the news with terror as images of the Boston Marathon bombing hit our screens. The events of that day, along with the manhunt that followed, left many of us with a sense of fear. We’ve experienced this many times together as a nation – tragedies at Columbine, the World Trade Center, Aurora CO, Sandy Hook, Fort Hood (twice), and Boston remind us that our safety is always precarious. We cannot protect ourselves; we cannot protect our families. When you throw in random tragedies like car accidents and terminal illnesses, it can all be too much to handle.
Sometimes, the world’s tragedies make me want to give up – to crawl in a hole somewhere and hug the people I love to keep them safe. But the hole probably isn’t safe, either. It’s a scary thing to realize the utter vulnerability that we face in every day living. Every day, we dodge thousands of proverbial bullets – and some people live in places where they are dodging literal ones. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROTECT OURSELVES. Yikes. Watching the Boston Marathon though, two years after the bombing, I realized something about fear and tragedy. This past week in Boston, MORE, not fewer people came to cheer on the runners. MORE not fewer people signed up to run. The temptation to crawl in a hole and avoid danger did not hit city of Boston. Now at first glance, it might seem a bit careless for all of those people to have decided to participate in this event after such tragedy. It’s like watching the news and seeing people who have their houses hit by tornadoes over and over – and we wonder why they don’t just move. Don’t they get that their current situation isn’t safe anymore? Chris Rock joked on SNL a while back about the newly rebuilt Freedom Tower in New York City. They should change the name, Rock quibbled, to the "Never Going In There Tower." Well, the city of Boston was smarter than all of that. The people involved in planning this event spent time reflecting. They looked at the event and found where the weaknesses were. They were honest about their faults. Then, they got to work. They brainstormed possible changes and new safety measures that could be implemented. They asked people to carry materials in clear bags. They increased security in some areas. They had a plan for keeping the crowds down at the finish line. Boston wasn’t going to let one bad day ruin the joy of their tradition. They reflected, made changes, and had courage. People went back in large force, and participated in a safe and successful event. The best part is that many people used this race as a way to heal from that tragedy. If the city had decided to give up and cancel, many people would have been unable to continue the healing process. We can all learn from Boston. Tragedies are a part of our lives. That is an uncontested fact. Crawling in a hole never solved anything or made tragedies less common. So, what we can do is reflect on the situation, decide what is within our control to change, create new safety nets for ourselves, and get back out in the world. Once we accept that we cannot avoid danger, we are free to live more fully. It's easier said than done, for sure. But it's worth a try.
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from "God and Money" by Jill Phillps album God & Money, 2002 "No one serves both God and money, 'Cause they're both wanting the same thing Only one can have your full attention..." Tax day is just behind us, which has many of us reflecting on our net salaries for the year. “If we just had a little more money,” said, well, everyone I have ever known. Most people, myself included, are great at fooling themselves into thinking that just a wee bit more money would solve their problems. After all, we really need a bigger so and so, and we of course could use more whatchamacalit. No matter how much we have, we think we need just at tad bit more to be comfortable.
You all know where this is going, right? When we get the next bit of money, we use it on something we “need,” just in time to come up with something else that we “need.” So the cycle continues, and we pine once more, thinking again that the next raise or inheritance or lottery win will fix things. When I catch myself in this financial trap, I try and pull myself back a bit. I remind myself that I made it just fine when I was in graduate school living on peanuts for pay. Or how when I got my first job, and was going to be making significantly less than a public school teacher, I called my mom and said, “how am I ever going to use all that money!” Oh how quickly I found things to spend it on. And I learned what my friends were making, and I became jealous – even though I loved my job and felt blessed to go to work every morning. I think of all of the people in the world – even in this land of opportunity USA – who would give anything to make every month the salary that I think is just a bit shy of enough. It helps if every once in a while, I take a moment to remind myself of the difference between needs and wants. We all learned somewhere in middle school that humans need a few basic things to survive: like food, water, shelter, and clothing. When we got a bit more advanced in our schooling, we probably learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which expands this list to include safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Now what I notice when I read this list, is that beyond food and shelter, (and maybe safety), not much of the rest of our needs can be met through spending money. We can fool ourselves into thinking that bigger boobs, a smaller waist, or a straighter nose will give us more self esteem, or that buying gifts for someone will bring us more love, but we all know that those external attempts don’t work if we don’t have some deep internal love for ourselves. Money is something we can quantify – we can track it with spreadsheets and budgets. So we often project our feelings of inadequacy to our bank accounts. A little more money is all I need… A bigger house in a nicer neighborhood or a newer car might make us safer, for sure. But fancier cable, new shoes, and more gadgets will hardly make us happier or meet our deepest needs. So when like me, you begin to feel like your money isn’t enough, look around at the love you share with family and friends. Money can’t buy that. Yes, we do have real needs that cost money, but overall, what we have now is probably more than enough. Instead of wanting a little more money, how about focusing on spending a little more time away from your cell phone, or giving a little more away to a charity that you believe in. Make a little more room in your day to roll around on the floor with your kids. If there is anything we could all use a little more of, it’s probably kindness – shown to ourselves and to others – and that doesn’t cost a penny. |
Diana CurtisWife, mom, stepmom, writing instructor, handbell ringer, choir singer, calligrapher, and expert napper. Archives
December 2017
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