“A pair of shoes can change your life. Just ask Cinderella.”

 

Did you give in to America's craziness called Black Friday and go out shopping? You can tell I didn't. Giffts are banished this holiday season and we ate a modest meal thursday and gave the lavish money to the local food bank. So instead I started some charity knitting. If you don't know what charity knitting is you can simply google it and find that babies in hospitals need cotton blankets, AIDS patients need soft clothing that won't irritate their skin, and cancer patients can really use handsome hats and headcovering if they don't like the bald look.  Most counties, sewing guilds or hospitals have programs and they simply give you the requirements for fibers ( washable etc) and a place for you to bring your items. I have made blankets, walker bags to hold someone's gear while using their walker, and caps for oncology patients. There are even programs to make a pretty dress for a little girl who would never be able to afford one.

 

And then there have been two food projects I was itimately involved with- this in addition to the donating food at Yom Kippur which is typical in most american synagogues. The first was a group of us  who took over the kitchen in a shelter twice a month- letting the staff have a night off. We would cook and serve and then assist diners in the dining room by  carrying a tray, helping with little ones and then cleaning up after a diner was done so someone else could sit at the space. It took no preparation, all you did was show up at the shelter the night you were assigned and do whatever needed to be done. My preference was allways to "work the floor." It took me right into the crowd and let me interact with the people who had come to eat, Some grateful and polite, some proud and dismissal, some so apathetic that they were like the dreamwalkers. But all hungry and all worth treating with dignity.

 

The other program was begun by Congregation Emanuel in Denver. On a weekday we went to various grocery stores and food venders and took what they were going to throw away at the end of the day. we took the very suitable and nutrious food back to the temple kitchen and cooked soups and stews and borrowed a congregant's van to drive to the areas of the city where we knew homeless people to gather at night. We set up a feeding station with the van and gave out hot food to anyone who approached us, plus soap, towels, toothbrushes- all those things garnered from congregants who stayed on hotels and took the small samples  home from vacation and gave them to the temple. This was a weekly event and a little nerve racking at first as I had- at that time- had little to do directly with the homeless.... but surprisingly it was less eventful than a day at the mall where one encounters far more suspicious looking people. And everyone we served was glad to get the soap or a washcloth and certainly a hot cup of stew made with fresh ingredients.

 

I am thinking of these things partly because we are heading into holiday seasons of consumption and excess and also because I am reading the House of Mirth, where 1905 NYC excess abounds.  And for the first time in my life I am going to follow a budget so that our retirement can be independent and happy. And while I have a fair amount of money with which to budget it's got me thinking about the rest of the world and how well off so many of us are and how we are obligated by our membership in humanity to be helpful to those who need it.

 

Whether it's a formal religion that compels you or just plain logic- a people's nobility is judged by it's weakest link and America has just got to do better. Do your part. I am.